Good girl. Now walk away. Turn on your heel—good. Walk toward the door. Keep your chin high. Let the crowd part. One step after another.
I listened to him, let him keep me tethered to sanity as I was escorted back to my cell by the guards—who still kept their distance. Rhysand’s words echoed through my mind, holding me together.
But when my cell door closed, he went silent, and I dropped to the floor and wept.
I wept for hours. For myself, for Tamlin, for the fact that I should be dead and had somehow survived. I cried for everything I’d lost, every injury I’d ever received, every wound—physical or otherwise. I cried for that trivial part of me, once so full of color and light—now hollow and dark and empty.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t beat her. She won today, and she hadn’t known it.
She’d won; it was only by cheating that I’d survived. Tamlin would never be free, and I would perish in the most awful of ways. I couldn’t read—I was an ignorant, human fool. My shortcomings had caught up with me, and this place would become my tomb. I would never paint again; never see the sun again.
The walls closed in—the ceiling dropped. I wanted to be crushed; I wanted to be snuffed out. Everything converged, squeezing inward, sucking out air. I couldn’t keep myself in my body—the walls were forcing me out of it. I was grasping for my body, but it hurt too much each time I tried to maintain the connection. All I had wanted—all I had dared want, was a life that was quiet, easy. Nothing more than that. Nothing extraordinary. But now … now …
I felt the ripple in the darkness without having to look up, and didn’t flinch at the soft footsteps that approached me. I didn’t bother hoping that it would be Tamlin. “Still weeping?”
Rhysand.
I didn’t lower my hands from my face. The floor rose toward the lowering ceiling—I would soon be flattened. There was no color, no light here.
“You’ve just beaten her second task. Tears are unnecessary.”
I wept harder, and he laughed. The stones reverberated as he knelt before me, and though I tried to fight him, his grip was firm as he grasped my wrists and pried my hands from my face.
The walls weren’t moving, and the room was open—gaping. No colors, but shades of darkness, of night. Only those star-flecked violet eyes were bright, full of color and light. He gave me a lazy smile before he leaned forward.
I pulled away, but his hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met with my cheek, and he licked away a tear. His tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn’t move as he licked away another path of salt water, and then another. My body went taut and loose all at once and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs. It was only when his tongue danced along the damp edges of my lashes that I jerked back.
He chuckled as I scrambled for the corner of the cell. I wiped my face as I glared at him.
He smirked, sitting down against a wall. “I figured that would get you to stop crying.”
“It was disgusting.” I wiped my face again.
“Was it?” He quirked an eyebrow and pointed to his palm—to the place where my tattoo would be. “Beneath all your pride and stubbornness, I could have sworn I detected something that felt differently. Interesting.”
“Get out.”
“As usual, your gratitude is overwhelming.”
“Do you want me to kiss your feet for what you did at the trial? Do you want me to offer another week of my life?”
“Not unless you feel compelled to do so,” he said, his eyes like stars.
It was bad enough that my life was forfeited to this Fae lord—but to have a bond where he could now freely read my thoughts and feelings and communicate …
“Who would have thought that the self-righteous human girl couldn’t read?”
“Keep your damned mouth shut about it.”
“Me? I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone. Why waste that kind of knowledge on petty gossip?”
If I’d had the strength, I would have leaped on him and ripped him apart. “You’re a disgusting bastard.”
“I’ll have to ask Tamlin if this kind of flattery won his heart.” He groaned as he stood, a soft, deep-throated noise that traveled along my bones. His eyes met with mine, and he smiled slowly. I exposed my teeth, almost hissing.
“I’ll spare you the escort duties tomorrow,” he said, shrugging as he walked to the cell door. “But the night after, I expect you to be looking your finest.” He gave me a grin that suggested my finest wasn’t very much at all. He paused by the door, but didn’t dissolve into darkness. “I’ve been thinking of ways to torment you when you come to my court. I’m wondering: Will assigning you to learn to read be as painful as it looked today?”
He vanished into shadow before I could launch myself at him.
I paced through my cell, scowling at the eye in my hand. I spat every curse I could at it, but there was no response.
It took me a long while to realize that Rhysand, whether he knew it or not, had effectively kept me from shattering completely.
Chapter 41