For any readers out there - you'll note that I've somewhat deviated from SJMs cannon by combining Amarantha's ball & Masquerade party. In this particular fic, those two events are one and the same. Found it to be a little more fun that way. Hope you enjoy :).
Also want to note that there are graphic depictions of violence/gore in this chapter.
Middle Lands - Under the Mountain - Hour 1
Amarantha's laughter was ringing in Rhysand's ears as if he had stepped in front of an explosion. The strange numbness that was quickly followed by a high-pitched whine transported him nauseatingly back to the war, and he was briefly lost amidst the thunderous roar of the battlefield.
He reached for his power on instinct - to cool himself down, to glamour himself from view, to disappear from existence, but he kept failing. Why did he keep failing? It was like striking flint stones together over kindling to be greeted only with sparks and no flame.
It took far too long for him to come to grips with the fact that his power was well and truly gone. He felt hollowed out, a husk of himself without it. He had never been without it. It was a part of who he was, a deep and steadying truth he could always fall back on. Perhaps he didn't always feel strong, but he always knew he was strong. Who was he with that strength stripped away?
Rhysand had to force his focus back into the room around him. The partygoers were in the death throes of their denial. Shocked and angry shouting had devolved into hushed and terrified whispering as the room quieted down.
"My Lord," someone whispered behind him. It was Jivral, a face Rhysand recognized from his court in the Hewn City. In his shock, he had nearly forgotten his own people were in attendance here as well and when he looked over his shoulder at Jivral, he saw their faces huddled closely together. They encroached on him slowly, their eyes glassy and their faces pale and drawn. There were perhaps fifty, maybe a touch more, if he had to guess. And they all looked to him now, even Kier, though he stood more toward the back of the group.
Nothing brought enemies together quite like shared trauma, Rhysand thought with scorn.
Rhys straightened under their pleading gazes, pushing his hair back as he turned to face them fully. He took a quick inventory of those who were in attendance - who he recognized and which faces were unfamiliar. Thankfully, he didn't see anyone who hadn't reached maturity.
The courtiers were all largely familiar, hailing from well-heeled and traditionalist bloodlines that kept residence in the Court of Nightmares. They were mostly high fae, accompanied by some of their attendants who were lesser fae.
"What do we do?" Jivral asked, his voice shaking. The fear in his voice added some steel to Rhysand's spine. He reached out and placed a hand on Jivral's shoulder, who flinched beneath his touch.
"Try to remain calm. All of you." Rhysand spoke with authority, but was hesitant to raise his voice too loudly and attract any unwanted attention from the other courts. He glanced around and saw that each court had closed ranks around their High Lord in much the same way his had.
"She's taken our powers," a lithe female near the middle of the group hissed, her whisper shrill. Her lavender eyes were huge as they stared at Rhysand like he would be the answer to her prayers. She clutched the arm of her male companion hard. He could see the tendrils of her mussed hair trembling as she fought back more tears.
"Yes, she has," Rhys answered, confirming in so many words that his powers, too, were gone.
The female choked on a sob, squeezing her eyes closed as her mouth opened in agonized dismay.
Those gathered near him began shifting on their feet - eyes darting to the enormous stone doors. Rhysand wished he had a plan. He wished there was something he could do to turn back the clock, but the seconds ticked on, burying them all deeper in the sticking mud of Amarantha's design.
He was about to placate them again, knowing all he really had to offer was empty bravado, but Amarantha's voice cut through the garble of the crowd.
"You fools," she began, her voice lazy with delight. "For fifty years I have studied you, all of you." Her eyes jumped around the room and for a searing moment, they held Rhysand's, glittering like a blade dripping with fresh blood, then skipped onto the next High Lord. He clenched his teeth together. "For fifty years I have assured you, flattered you. Your trusted Never-Fading Flower," she mocked with a cruel edge to her voice, using the nickname Prythian had bestowed upon her as she righteously toured from court to court, making amends for her part in the war.
Rhysand tore his eyes away from Amarantha to peer at Tamlin, who was still standing ramrod straight at her side. He appeared pale — his blonde hair was darker at the temples, damp from the sweat of his fruitless exertion, and though he remained motionless, his eyes darted wildly around the room at Amarantha's words. He couldn't help but think of Jurian's eye, and glanced at her finger to find that it was doing the same. Two souls, leashed to a demon against their wills, on display for all to see.
How much more would she take?
"You should't have trusted me," she said in a sing-song voice, drawing Rhysand's attention back to her. She lifted her finger, the one with Jurian's eye trapped on it, and wagged it at the crowd at large, as if scolding a youngling.
Then she laughed again. The sound of it was manic, and each note echoed throughout the silent hall again and again and again, until the sounds layered over one another like some sort of menacing symphony.
"Now, what's yours is mine. And what's mine, can so too be yours," she said and turned suggestively toward Tamlin. Rhysand didn't think it was possible for Tamlin to get any paler, but now his skin took on the pallor of the recently deceased. "I ask again, join me, be my consort, my lover, and we'll rule Prythian together as High King and Queen."
Rhysand could hear his heart beating in his ears. It seemed so loud, so obvious that he swore those around him would be able to hear it as well. But no one was paying him any mind. No, their attention was solely focused on Amarantha and Tamlin, locked in a silent, but vicious battle.
"You're mad," Tamlin choked out. His voice was raspy, as if she squeezed an invisible vice around his throat as he tried to speak. Rhys watched her eyes as they darkened to blackened pits.
"Attor," she called, her voice throaty and low. A murmur of shock and fear trickled throughout the crowd. The creature swooped in suddenly from above, likely having been hidden in a crevice in the vast stone ceiling, waiting for his master to call for him. He banked then his leathery wings flared wide as he made to land just short of the dais. He was unnaturally large, though his shoulders were hunched, whether in supplication to Amarantha or simply in spite of his own build, it wasn't clear. Rhys nearly flinched at the all-too familiar sound of wings folding in tight and thought of his own, carefully hidden away. He wondered briefly if he'd ever fly again.
"Your Majesty," the beast answered, his gravelly voice boomed across the now silent space and Amarantha preened as he bent his head to greet her.
"Bring me Lucien Vanserra."
The request was odd, but before Rhysand could ponder it, the Attor turned and launched toward the wall where Lucien was standing. The creature was so fast and exacting in his actions, that Lucien didn't even have time to put up a fight. The Attor's clawed hands closed around Lucien's body, eclipsing his upper arms, and he all but dragged Lucien to the foot of the dais.
Beside the Attor's towering but gaunt frame and sagging flesh, Lucien was trying and failing to dislodge his arm. Distantly, Rhysand heard a female voice whimper desperately, then go quiet.
Amarantha took her time as she descended the few steps of her dais. She delicately lifted the hem of her skirts, but kept her eyes on Lucien, who was trying to divide his attention between Amarantha and Tamlin.
"You wound me, Tamlin," she said as she came to a stop before Lucien. They were eye to eye, equals in height. Amarantha was no slight female. She had been the commander of armies; she was battle-hardened. And though she was passably attractive, she certainly was no great beauty.
She reached up slowly and plucked Lucien's masquerade mask from his face. To his credit, he didn't flinch away from her as her fingertips grazed the skin of his face.
"Won't you talk some sense into your dearest friend, Lucien?" Amarantha said, voice delicate and demure. There was a beat of silence before Lucien responded.
He curled his lip in disgust and said, "Go back to the shit-hole you crawled out of," and finished by spitting at her feet.
Lucien never had a way with words during Rhysand's limited interactions with him. He was often surly, impatient, borderline annoyed in most situations. But this? Rhysand would have never thought Lucien had the balls. The urge to applaud, to laugh and cheer threatened to bubble up inside him. Had the situation not been so dire, had he not been stripped of his powers and reduced to a mere mortal, maybe he would have applauded the sly fox. But good sense prevailed. The truth was that they were trapped in here with her, not the other way around. And instead of cheering the crazy bastard, Rhysand now gulped down his growing fear for him.
She considered him for a long moment, her ruby lips puckering and her nose wrinkling in distaste. Her face screwed up as if she had smelled something foul, not been verbally debased by an exiled spare of the Autumn Court.
With one hand, she cradled his fox mask to her chest, and with the other, she reached up and used her forefinger to carve out Lucien's left eye.
She wasn't quick about it.
She dug her finger in deeply at the inner corner, twisted and hooked it until she found purchase behind his eyeball.
Blood the color of her lips and hair began to pour from Lucien's ruined eye. Lucien began to struggle in earnest, but the Attor held him in place by force, wrapping both his spindly arms around his chest to pin Lucien's arms to his side. Tamlin was screaming, but remained rooted to his place in front of the far-right throne. Several decibels above the outrage of the crowd, a female was screaming and Rhysand realized it was the sound of a mother unable to save her son from the torture he was enduring.
Amarantha jabbed her finger in deeper, seated to the knuckle inside Lucien's eye socket. She twisted her finger again, a cruel smile slashing along her lips as she severed the eyeball from the socket and pulled it free with a sickening squelch.
Her hand was slick with blood as she held the glassy eye aloft like a prize. From it hung ropey maroon nerves of varying lengths, dripping blood onto the stone floor between them. Lucien's body went limp in the Attor's hold, his head slumping forward alarmingly. He hadn't screamed once the entire time, hadn't given her the satisfaction of hearing the sound of his pain. But he was panting now, dragging in wet, gasping breaths and coughing up blood intermittently.
The Attor was laughing, the sound of it grating, like boots scraping over a trail of fine gravel. The memory of the Attor's sadistic laughter, Tamlin's screaming and Lucien's frantic gulping for breath would haunt Rhysand for a long time to come.
Aghast by what had just happened, Rhysand began to move forward, almost unconsciously. He was powerless, yes, but this was crossing a line he couldn't abide. And though he harbored no real love for Lucien Vanserra, he felt this excessive display of power was just the beginning. He had already failed at his task once, could he save them all from the inevitable horrors to come?
His boot had barely made it off the ground when he felt a soft hand fall onto his shoulder. He turned to see Jivral had stopped him. The young fae was shaking his head slowly, eyes wide and pleading. Although he looked just as afraid to be standing in Rhysand's path, there was a determination to his gaze that gave Rhysand pause.
In any case, he was sidelined by Amarantha luxuriating in a dramatic sigh of relief.
"There," Amarantha began, turning to Tamlin and holding the eye close for him to see. "Now we are both wounded."
She was sick. Rhysand had been right all along. She wasn't going to stop — she'd never stop, not until she finally had all she wanted. She had half of it already. Had wrestled it from seven of the most powerful beings in the land in one fell swoop. The other half stood stoically before her, shaking with unchecked rage and looking for all the world like he was going to rip her limb from limb.
What she didn't realize, and what was so painfully clear to Rhysand, was that by maiming Lucien, Amarantha had driven Tamlin even further from her grasp.
Tamlin was staring at Lucien's bodiless eye, breathing hard. Shock had reduced the crowd to a sea of hushed and cowed figurines. Rhysand vacillated wildly from disbelief to horror.
"You can have what they don't. I'll give you your powers back, your land, your ancestral home! Become my consort and I will release your court with no ill will, on my honor." She finished by placing the hand she held Lucien's eye with over her heart. Tamlin's eyes tracked the movement with barely veiled revulsion.
His lip curled. "I would sooner take a human to my bed, bond with a human, marry a human, than so much as touch you in passing," he spat, baring his teeth at her like an animal as he spoke. He was still unable to move, but Rhysand saw his fingers trembling, fighting to curl into fists at his side.
Amarantha laughed dismissively, but Tamlin wasn't done.
"Even your own sister, your blood, preferred a human's company to yours. Your own sister chose a human over you," he seethed, now panting. "She couldn't stand to be near you. She refused you and so do I."
The room was so quiet Rhysand could hear his own blood rushing through his veins. He balanced on the balls of his feet, readying himself for whatever came next, be it a battle or all out slaughter. He was ready.
He couldn't see Amarantha's face, but he watched the jewels in her crown tremble as she struggled to rein in her palpable fury.
"Then you have doomed yourself." She crushed Lucien's eyeball in her fist and flung the remains carelessly off to the side. "And you have doomed all of Prythian. But, out of respect for your father, and because I'm feeling especially generous, I'll give you one last chance to break the spell and reclaim your power."
Tamlin reared back and spat in her face. Unmoved, Amarantha vanished the glob with a wave of her hand and a merry laugh.
"You're a man of the faith, so I'll humor you. You have seven times seven years to break my curse before my magic will claim you as my consort." Her tinkling laugh skipped over the painfully silent crowd like a rock thrown over smooth water. "Your task is simple. You need only find a human girl willing to bond to you, to marry you," she said mockingly, throwing his words back at him. Tamlin's chest was heaving, his breaths coming faster than before.
Rhysand could see Tamlin working through her plan already, but he knew Amarantha wasn't done. He was silently urging Tamlin to ask what else. What else.
She clasped her hands together in front of her, crusted over now with Lucien's rapidly drying blood. "But that's not all. The human girl must have ice in her heart, just like you. She must hate our kind. So much so that she'd murder us, unprovoked. In fact — she must murder one of us, one of your men, Tamlin. Someone close to you, someone you trust. Just like dear Jurian did to my sister."
Amarantha held up her finger with Jurian's eye. It rolled wildly in its glass enclosure. The absence of an eyelid gave it the appearance of permanent shock, forever frozen in wide-eyed terror. It seemed to roll from side to side again and again, looking very much like it was communicating "no."
"Complete this task in forty-nine years and you are free, you are all free," she said and swept her arm out over those gathered before her. "For now, you and your court are free to go home, relax, rest. Get dear Lucien all patched up. But, oh!" She said, clapping her hands together and turning back to Lucien. "Don't forget your masks. They'll be your constant companions for the forty-nine years. We wouldn't want to make beloved Lucien self-conscious now, would we?" She shoved Lucien's fox mask roughly back onto his face. Lucien's groan of agony drew another smile from her lips.
Amarantha turned and walked slowly toward Tamlin and placed a hand on his chest, right over his heart. "In time, you'll come around. Until then, be still your heart of stone, in silence may it lay. Once claimed forever by my hand, may it continue to beat away."
Rhysand knew the lyrical affect of a curse when he heard it. The smell of brine and ash stuffed itself into his nose and burned straight up to his eyes until they watered slightly.
Tamlin twitched, then violently lurched forward, clutching at his chest and falling to his knees with a groan.
Amarantha stepped back from him and ordered the Attor to drop Lucien where he stood.
Tamlin's head snapped up to look at her. Then he looked out over the crowd, his wide-eyed gaze grasping Rhysand's own for a heartbeat before he lunged for Lucien and drew him against his body.
Amarantha curled her lip. "Go," she sneered at them. With a flick of her wrist, Tamlin, Lucien and everyone present from the Spring Court vanished.