amarantha

If she captured Tamlin__ power once, who__ to say she can__ do it again?_ It was the question I hadn__ yet dared voice.__e won__ be tricked again so easily,_ he said, staring up at the ceiling. __er biggest weapon is that she keeps our powers contained. But she can__ access them, not wholly__hough she can control us through them. It__ why I__e never been able to shatter her mind__hy she__ not dead already. The moment you break Amarantha__ curse, Tamlin__ wrath will be so great that no force in the world will keep him from splattering her on the walls.__ chill went through me.__hy do you think I__ doing this?_ He waved a hand to me.__ecause you__e a monster.__e laughed. __rue, but I__ also a pragmatist. Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against her. Seeing you enter into a fool__ bargain with Amarantha was one thing, but when Tamlin saw my tattoo on your arm _ Oh, you should have been born with my abilities, if only to have felt the rage that seeped from him.__ didn__ want to think much about his abilities. __ho__ to say he won__ splatter you as well?___erhaps he__l try__ut I have a feeling he__l kill Amarantha first. That__ what it all boils down to, anyway: even your servitude to me can be blamed on her. So he__l kill her tomorrow, and I__l be free before he can start a fight with me that will reduce our once-sacred mountain to rubble._ He picked at his nails. __nd I have a few other cards to play.__ lifted my brows in silent question.__eyre, for Cauldron__ sake. I drug you, but you don__ wonder why I never touch you beyond your waist or arms?__ntil tonight__ntil that damned kiss. I gritted my teeth, but even as my anger rose, a picture cleared.__t__ the only claim I have to innocence,_ he said, __he only thing that will make Tamlin think twice before entering into a battle with me that would cause a catastrophic loss of innocent life. It__ the only way I can convince him I was on your side. Believe me, I would have liked nothing more than to enjoy you__ut there are bigger things at stake than taking a human woman to my bed.__ knew, but I still asked, __ike what?___ike my territory,_ he said, and his eyes held a far-off look that I hadn__ yet seen. __ike my remaining people, enslaved to a tyrant queen who can end their lives with a single word. Surely Tamlin expressed similar sentiments to you._ He hadn____ot entirely. He hadn__ been able to, thanks to the curse.__hy did Amarantha target you?_ I dared ask. __hy make you her whore?___eyond the obvious?_ He gestured to his perfect face. When I didn__ smile, he loosed a breath. __y father killed Tamlin__ father__nd his brothers.__ started. Tamlin had never said__ever told me the Night Court was responsible for that.__t__ a long story, and I don__ feel like getting into it, but let__ just say that when she stole our lands out from under us, Amarantha decided that she especially wanted to punish the son of her friend__ murderer__ecided that she hated me enough for my father__ deeds that I was to suffer.__ might have reached a hand toward him, might have offered my apologies__ut every thought had dried up in my head. What Amarantha had done to him __o,_ he said wearily, __ere we are, with the fate of our immortal world in the hands of an illiterate human.

But Amarantha rolled her eyes and slouched in her throne. __hatter him, Rhysand._ She flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. __ou may do what you want with the body afterward.__he High Lord of the Summer Court bowed__s if he__ been given a gift__nd looked to his subject, who had gone still and calm on the floor, hugging his knees. The male faerie was ready__elieved.Rhys slipped a hand out of his pocket, and it dangled at his side. I could have sworn phantom talons flickered there as his fingers curled slightly.____ growing bored, Rhysand,_ Amarantha said with a sigh, again fiddling with that bone. She hadn__ looked at me once, too focused on her current prey.Rhysand__ fingers curled into a fist.The faerie male__ eyes went wide__hen glazed as he slumped to the side in the puddle of his own waste. Blood leaked from his nose, from his ears, pooling on the floor.That fast__hat easily, that irrevocably _ he was dead.__ said shatter his mind, not his brain,_ Amarantha snapped.The crowd murmured around me, stirring. I wanted nothing more than to fade back into it__o crawl back into my cell and burn this from my mind. Tamlin hadn__ flinched__ot a muscle. What horrors had he witnessed in his long life if this hadn__ broken that distant expression, that control?Rhysand shrugged, his hand sliding back into his pocket. __pologies, my queen._ He turned away without being dismissed, and didn__ look at me as he strode for the back of the throne room. I fell into step beside him, reining in my trembling, trying not to think about the body sprawled behind us, or about Clare__till nailed to the wall.The crowd stayed far, far back as we walked through it. __hore,_ some of them softly hissed at him, out of her earshot; __marantha__ whore._ But many offered tentative, appreciative smiles and words___ood that you killed him; good that you killed the traitor.

Faeries began calling foul play, demanding Tamlin be released from the curse, calling her a liar. Through the haze, I saw Rhysand crouching by Tamlin. Not to help him, but to grab the-"You are all pigs - all scheming, filthy pigs."Then Rhysand was on his feet, my bloody knife in his hands. He launched himself at Amarantha, swift as a shadow, the ash dagger aimed at her throat.She lifted a hand - not even bothering to look - and he was blasted back by a wall of white light.But the pain paused for a second, long enough for me to see him hit the ground and rise again and lunge for her - with hands that now ended in talons. He slammed into the invisible wall Amarantha had raised around herself, and my pain flickered as she turned to him."You traitorous piece of filth," she seethed at Rhysand. "You're just as bad as the human beasts." One by one, as if a hand were shoving them in, his talons pushed back into his skin, leaving blood in their wake. He swore, low and vicious. "You were planning this all along.

What do you care?" I barked, and his grip tightened enough on my wrists that I knew my bones would snap with a little more pressure."What do I care?" he breathed, wrath twisting his features. Wings - those membranous, glorious wings - flared from his back, crafted from the shadows behind him. "What do I care?"But before he could go on, his head snapped to the door, then back to my face. The wings vanished as quickly as they had appeared, and then his lips were crushing into mine. His tongue pried my mouth open, forcing himself into me, into the space where I could still taste Tamlin. I pushed and trashed, but he held firm, his tongue sweeping over the roof of my mouth, against my teeth, claiming me - The door was flung wide, and Amarantha's curved figure filled its space. Tamlin - Tamlin was beside her, his eyes slightly wide, shoulders tight as Rhys's lips still crushed mine.Amarantha laughed, and a mask of stone slammed down on Tamlin's face. void of feeling, void of anything vaguely like the Tamlin I'd been tangled up with moments before.

Say that you don__ love him!_ Amarantha shrieked, and the blood on my hands became the blood of that rabbit__ecame the blood of what I had lost.But I wouldn__ say it. Because loving Tamlin was the only thing I had left, the only thing I couldn__ sacrifice.A path cleared through my red-and-black vision. I found Tamlin__ eyes__ide as he crawled toward Amarantha, watching me die, and unable to save me while his wound slowly healed, while she still gripped his power.Amarantha had never intended for me to live, never intended to let him go.__marantha, stop this,_ Tamlin begged at her feet as he clutched the gaping wound in his chest. __top. I__ sorry____ sorry for what I said about Clythia all those years ago. Please.