Leaving the Court of Nightmares felt like a curse.

Feyre had left me breathless on my throne, her touch and scent lingering all over me as I listened to the endless prattle of the courtiers. But when the moment came to actually leave, I choked.

One look at Feyre as we were within arm’s length of each other again and any happy illusion of her and I dreamt up on that throne was shattered, replaced by one solitary word: Whore.

“See you back-” Mor started to say, but I pushed her aside, grabbed Feyre, and winnowed without a word.

Whore.

It rang and rang and rang with a bleeding in my ears. Kier’s mouth the cave through which it echoed.

The word corrupted me. I practically tossed Feyre aside as I released her arm and marched several feet away from her in the mountain clearing we’d reached, running a hand through my hair. I had thought… we were… she looked… Fuck, I didn’t know what she looked like anymore, how she felt about me. One minute her body was pressed up against mine tighter than a violin string and she’s looking at me like she wanted it too, and the next…

Whore .

I felt sick.

“I’m sorry,” I rasped suddenly. I didn’t know what else to say. How she could ever forgive me, was still standing here even -

“What do you possibly have to be sorry for?” Feyre asked.

Her question was so innocent, as if she didn’t know, and I wondered. She had seemed… accepting as she watched me that last hour, but a selfish, savage beast inside of me denied the possibility as Keir filled my mind to the tipping point with truth.

Truth. That bastard’s family gift, right? He couldn’t lie. No one who’d seen us could have. Mor would have pummeled me into the dirt if she could have heard my thoughts right now. I was glad I’d taken Feyre away alone first before facing them all.

Fuck, what would my friends say, I hadn’t even thought...

“I shouldn’t have let you go. Let you see that part of us. Of me.”

My hands shook. I wanted to fall over, to collapse as the full weight of the day struck me, my perfect facade was so eroded.

But still Feyre said, “I’m fine,” a little insistence behind her words that I wanted to believe. But then, “We knew what tonight would require of us. Please - please don’t start… protecting me. Not like that.”

I could hear the fear in her voice. See it play out in her head as we recalled the same memory. The reality of how she felt smacked me in the head. It was all an act. An outright lie. I was no better to her than Tamlin, a monster dressed up in beautiful clothes with a will to control her. The idea cracked my skull in half, and a river of sin came tumbling out.

Unhinged. Unglued. Just like in Adriata when I’d seen that necklace thrown at my feet on Feyre’s bed.

“I will never - never lock you up, force you to stay behind. But when he threatened you tonight, when he called you…” I tightened my fists to release the pressure. Mercy, she didn’t even feel free around me yet. “It’s hard to shut down my instincts.”

The heat on Feyre’s body jumped about a million degrees. Her stance shifted, barring herself against me. “Then you should have prepared yourself better,” she seethed. “You seemed to be going along just fine with it, until Keir said-”

“I will kill anyone who harms you!” I shot back, cutting her off. “I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing it. Go ahead. Hate me - despise me for it.”

“You’re my friend!” she said, her voice cracking on a sob.

Friend. My friend.

“You’re my friend - and I understand that you’re High Lord. I understand that you will defend your true court, and punish threats against it. But I can’t… I don’t want you to stop telling me things, inviting me to do things, because of the threats against me.”

Tears spilled down her face without hesitation. It was the most honest she had ever been with me directly. But all I could think and feel and see inside my own stupid, selfish brain was Tamlin. And I lost it. The darkness exploded - the one that brings pain and sacrifice, my wings flying right along with it on that wicked wind.

“I am not him,” I said in a cold, low voice. “I will never be him, act like him. He locked you up and let you wither, die.”

“He tried-”

“Stop comparing. Stop comparing me to him! You think I don’t know how stories get written - how this story will be written?” My hands flew to my body. I could already feel the guilt racking up its debt inside of me, but I shoved it aside for the rage I harbored instead - had harbored for months . “I am the dark lord,” I explained and Feyre shuddered. “Who stole away the bride of spring. I am a demon, and a nightmare, and I will meet a bad end. He is the golden prince - the hero who will get to keep you as his reward for not dying of stupidity and arrogance.”

“And what about my story? What about my reward? What about what I want?”

Feyre challenged me with a cold, unfeeling look not unlike the mask I wore most frequently, trying to prove a point, but did she even know what she was asking?

“What is it that you want, Feyre?” Her face flickered in briefest doubt as silence fell. So I asked her again, “What is it that you want , Feyre?” Again, nothing. My fears about everything confirmed in her silence over nothing. She didn’t want me. She didn’t want any of this. I was convinced of it beyond a shadow of a doubt. She was my mate and I had known it instantly, knew I would love her until the sun bled and the clouds cried on the final days of Prythian and even then for a millennia after, and I would have told her in a heartbeat had she asked me. But to ask the same of her?

Nothing.

“Perhaps you should take some time to figure that out one of these days,” I said, my anger in complete control. Bitter until the very end. But it was Feyre’s next words that marked my death.

“Perhaps I don’t know what I want,” she said, venom hissing from her red-lipped mouth. “But at least I don’t hide what I am behind a mask. At least I let them see who I am, broken bits and all. Yes - it’s to save your people. But what about the other masks, Rhys? What about letting your friends see your real face? But maybe it’s easier not to. Because what if you did let someone in? And what if they saw everything , and still walked away? Who could blame them - who would want to bother with that sort of mess?”

My entire body jerked. Several feet separated us. It felt like a chasm. And then… I was empty. Her words stripped me so bare, I wasn’t sure even I had ever seen such a raw version of myself.

Mess . Suddenly infinitely worse than whore .

At once, Feyre shifted. Her face shattered. “Rhys.” That’s all she said. Just my name. Just one little word. Barely even a syllable long. But the chasm it opened was too wide to cross.

“Let’s go home,” I said, my voice as hollow and red-rimmed as Feyre’s tear-stained eyes. When had she started crying?

I grabbed her hand before she could even try to sway me and winnowed home. All except Amren waited for us at the town house. “What the fuck did Kier say that-”  Feyre’s fingers were out of my grasp the moment we touched down, cutting Cassian off abruptly. I heard her mumble some vague excuse under her breath before she tore down the hall and disappeared, leaving everyone gaping at the aftermath of our fight written all over Feyre’s face.

As if they’d needed to see it. My own face was - a mess. The mask didn’t exist anymore. I barely even recalled what it had felt like watching Feyre disappear.

No one spoke. It felt like a thousand lifetimes spent Under the Mountain passed before I could even look up from the floor, and when I did, I found my Inner Circle gaping at me with a range of expressions. Azriel’s polite face was concerned, swimming in shadows to the point that he would drown. Cassian’s arms were crossed, his brows raised in the question his voice would dare not ask. And Mor… She was the worst.

My cousin stood with a passion in her eyes, hands braced on her hips as she pinned me down with such a piercing stare, not even Amren could have competed with it. Azriel watched her sharply, but didn’t so much as flinch to question her.

“Everyone. Get. Out.” she said, each word a solitary sculpture carved from a prison of ice.

“Mor,” Cassian said. “We need to talk about this together.”

“Get out,” Mor repeated.

“Come on, Mor-”

“I am not in the mood for your games, Cassian!” Mor’s voice rang through the apartment with finality. “You heard me.” And then her head turned to Azriel who had the decency not to look hurt as she silently dismissed him. My brothers reluctantly exited leaving me alone with my cousin’s wrath.

“What the hell is your problem, Rhysand?” Mor spat at me the second they were gone, each word clear and overly enunciated. The muscles of my back constricted against my spine with shivers.

“You don’t even know what happened.”

Mor tisked horribly. “I know exactly what happened. Don’t insult my intelligence. You don’t think we haven’t seen you the past however many months since you came back? Watched you try to pretend you haven’t been falling apart as badly as Feyre was until you saved her? You don’t think I don’t remember how you looked at me the first day you brought to the palace?” Her eyes stung with redness. “Rhysand…” Mor rushed at me suddenly, grabbing me by the shoulders with a heartbreaking stillness. A softness overtook some of the fury and I realized she wasn’t angry at me. Not at all. She was terrified for me.

“You’ve been a shadow,” she said, her voice unhinged. “And you’re pushing the one good thing that’s been saving you away. You need to tell her.”

All at once, my doubts came rushing back. I brushed my cousin’s touch away and side stepped her until we were separated by several feet, and still it wasn’t enough. An entire ocean could have stood between us and I could never have felt capable of breathing after what Feyre had told me.

“It’s not that simple, Mor,” I said. “I can’t tell her. I can never tell her. You don’t realize what she thinks of me.”

“I know exactly what she thinks of you and believe me when I say it’s not what you think she thinks of you.” I scoffed, but Mor pushed on, her arms flailing a bit. “She’s so stupid in love with you, Rhysand, the entire world knows except you. She might not have admitted it to herself yet, but it’s as plain as the tattoos you share with her on your skin.”

My stomach turned, refusing to accept it. My hands shook and I couldn’t steady them, but my pockets seemed miles away. A mess. A mess not worth loving, she had called me. “It doesn’t look that way anymore.” Mor’s tone snapped back to pure venom.

“It certainly looked that way up on that frigid throne of yours today. Cauldron’s sake, Rhysand, I didn’t know who was going to fuck the other one first, you or her.”

“Don’t talk about her that way,” I barked, whirring on Mor, but she jumped right back, flying into my face, her sharp perfectly manicured hands threatening to twist up my throat. It had been an age since I’d seen her this enraged - most especially with me.

“Why not!” she demanded. “Why should it be such a bad thing that she wants you? And she does. You could have taken her then and there on that throne and she would have let you, but not because it was part of the game.” She looked me over, her face so scrunched together, the moment became personal for her. “You don’t touch someone, feel someone, live in someone like that unless you love them, I don’t care what’s at stake otherwise.”

Mor was close to crying. If I were capable of being more honest with myself, I would have been too. My throat swelled nearly shut at the same time my chest tightened inwards and I felt all of the words die in my throat. The conversation with Feyre at the lake replayed in my head and all that guilt I’d ignored that told me I was making a mistake, choosing to be miserable, came roaring back to life to enact its revenge.

I didn’t say anything for the longest time. Simply stared at my cousin until she finally wiped her eyes. Mor... Now I’d hurt her too, the one person who knew... everything.

“Starfall is almost here,” she said shakily. “You should tell her soon or at least make up. It’d be a pity to waste the evening.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to Starfall.”

“Like hell you’re not,” Mor rasped, her voice run dry. “Rhysand,” and she grabbed my face firmly, but not without care. “I wasn’t under that mountain with you for fifty years, so I won’t pretend to understand what you went through there. Only Feyre has any idea what that was like. But I’ll be damned - damned - if you think for one moment that I am going to spend another Starfall without my cousin - without, without…”

Her words broke off in a sob and I pulled her against me instantly as the tears broke against my chest. I hadn’t realized just how much I had missed my fearsome, beautiful Morrigan until precisely that moment. I thought I’d known all this time, what she’d meant to me, all these years, but... I’d been blind.

“I can’t,” I whispered next to the ear pressed against my shoulder. “I can’t tell her. It’s too late. She hates me. She thinks I’m just like Tamlin.”

“What?” Mor pushed back enough to look at me, a confused expression on her face. “Rhys, if you really think that, then you haven’t been paying attention at all. And we’re done here. You fix this with Feyre and you go to Starfall.” She stabbed a finger into my chest with each declaration of instruction.

“Morrigan-”

“Ah-ah! You’re going and that’s final.”

She stepped away and made for the door, stopping when she reached the handle. “You fix this with her, okay? Or I’m going to have Azriel kick your ass back to Hybern while Cassian eats popcorn on the sidelines.” A vague flicker of a smile graced her face, but I couldn’t return it. “See you at Starfall,” she said, leaving no room for argument. And then she was gone.

The next few days were a blur. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I did solely what my court demanded I do and only that - speaking with Amren to get a letter to the queen dispatched, ensuring Cassian and Azriel had made the necessary adjustments I’d requested, and hunting down the cretins who’d attacked us to no end. And I avoided Feyre like a plague. The further the guilt seeped into me, the less courage I had to make amends. It didn’t matter what Morrigan thought or wanted. I’d seen Feyre’s face. I had heard the conviction in her voice when she told me I was worthless to love. She’d throw me out if I pushed again.

But every time the conversation replayed in my mind, it ended on that single word: Rhys. There had been the tiniest glimmer of something behind the way she’d said it that my heart dared to hope even while my mind was burnt out on the effort. How many times had I hoped and lost? I couldn’t go through that again.

Feyre and I had been going back and forth, circling each other so constantly. She had admitted it herself, she didn’t know what she wanted, so why waste my time trying to convince her?

The day of Starfall arrived and I still had no intention of going, my mind focused instead on the trip I’d decided we’d make to the Illyrian Steppes the following day to wait out the queens in better safety now that magic was tracked.

I awoke to find my suit hanging on the door for me, no doubt Morrigan’s way to taunt me into going. I vaguely wondered if she’d stayed overnight rather than at the House with the boys. But Feyre had made no move to see me since last we’d argued, all but confirming my decision to stay behind. So when a faint tug of magic flickered by me once in the morning and once at mid-day, I ignored them both. But the third time it happened, I felt an awful anxiety cross the bond and my masochistic curiosity got the better of me. I released the magic. A paper appeared beside me with Feyre’s neatly printed script.

Is this punishment? Or do people in your Inner Circle not get second chances if they piss you off? You’re a hateful coward.

Coward. Hateful. Pissed off. Whore.

But not mess .

I ignored all of it and honed in on one word: punishment. Feyre felt my silence was a punishment, and if she thought it was a punishment to be withheld from me…

Three times. She’d tried to contact me three times and I’d ignored her. I’d ignored her waiting for me in the garden after the Court of Nightmares too.

You don’t touch someone, feel someone, live in someone like that unless you love them, I don’t care what’s at stake otherwise.

All those times Mor had waited for Azriel. Had watched him over the dinner table when the conversation turned sour. Had her hand on his knee when I’d interrupted her receiving him at the House. Had stayed with him and waited for him and danced and delighted in him when he couldn’t for himself.

All those years. I’d barely given it one with Feyre.

Before the sun could finish setting, I jumped up and ran for the door, snatching the suit from the hanger, and threw all my hope into it as I prepared for Starfall.