I apologize in advance for so many reasons
âââ · ãï¾â: *.â½ .* :âï¾. âââ
The halls were unnaturally barren as we walked. The echo of the steel chains that had been locked to my wrists created a soft clanking sound with every step I took.
My heart was racing in my chest, and my fear was unimaginable as we came to a stop at the all too familiar stone doors of the throne room. Stone. I was getting, oh, so sick of stone.
I barely registered as a guard stepped up and peeled the doors open. I was ushered in and it was only then, for the first time in months had the guards grabbed me and pulled me towards the spot they had specially picked out for me. The spot just below Amarantha's throne.
I looked up at the Queen above me, the amusement that laced her features did nothing to soothe my aggravated nerves. I looked at Tamlin seated next to her, the High Lord still sat and did nothing as he watched us suffer. I wondered how he lived with himself.
I turned around to face the other direction, not taking my eyes off of the stone doors as I waited for my sister to enter through them. For minutes we all waited in silence. For minutes Amarantha commanded everyone in attendance to be silent as we all waited for the moment my sister walked in.
The loud booming sound of the doors opening again nearly caught me off guard. My limbs went slack as I watched my sisterâmy little sister enter with guards at her back. Feyre walked along the pathway created for her.
Feyre approached the dais, only steps away from me. I wished I could hug her, wish her luck. Say something. But I knew it would only make things worse.
I tried to convey everything I wanted to say with my eyes, with a look that I hoped showed my love and support for her. My sister returned it.
"Two trials lie behind you," Amarantha spoke finally, "And only one more awaits. I wonder if it will be worse to fail nowâwhen you are so close." Amarantha gave a poutâa very ugly gesture as she awaited the laughs of the crowds but only a few hissed out. Those I assumed were from Hybern.
I didn't look back at the Queen. Refused. "Any words to say before you die?" she questioned and I flinched. This was never supposed to happen. We were never supposed to die. It had gone too far, and it was my fault.
Feyre looked behind me and her eyes shone with love. I assumed she was looking at her ignorant lover, "I love you," she said, "no matter what she says about it, no matter if it's only with my insignificant human heart. Even when they burn my body I'll love you." had to admit It stung that her last words were to the doggy.
Tears slipped down Feyres cheeks but she didn't wipe them away. No sound, not even a sigh came from behind me. And I wished the High Lord a life of pain and misery.
Amarantha's too-sweet voice rang out, "You'll be lucky, my darling if we even have enough left of you to burn." I looked up at the sky, trying to prevent my tears from falling.
I knew what the odds were. The chance was so slim that my sister would survive this last trial and yet I still held an ember of hope.
Feyre's eyes found me then, she gave me a soft small as she mouthed the words I love you and I did the same. I wished we had more time for goodbyes. But that was not our reality.
"You never figured out my riddle, did you?" Amarantha asked and Feyre didn't respond, "Pity. The answer is so lovely."
"Get it over with," Feyre growled as her eyes burned with hatred.
"No final words to her?" I assume the Queen spoke to Tamlin, who still said nothing. Did nothing. "Very well, then." the Queen clapped her hands twice.
The doors swung open again and in came three figures all cloaked in hoods that showed nothing of their features. Guards dragged them ruffly and two stumbled a few times before they were pushed down before my sister in a kneeling position.
I had a suspicion of why they were here and I so dearly hoped I was wrong. I hoped my sister would never have to live with the blood-stained hands that I did.
I didn't wish my sister that torture.
Amarantha clapped her hands again and three servants clad in black appeared next to the faeries in their pale hands, they held dark velvet pillows. Ash-wood daggers lay on top. My stomach twisted into knots, and I thought I might be sick.
"Your final task, Feyre," Amarantha drawled, "Stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart."
"No," I whispered, trying to get out of the guards' grasp, but their hands were firm. I couldn't stand by and let this happen. I couldn't.
I tried to fight them off, but the hold they kept on me was nearly impossible to get out of. A salty tear escaped from my eye and the guards pushed me to my knees on the floor.
"They're innocentânot that it should matter to you." The Queen added and I could practically hear the cheerfulness in her voice. "Since it wasn't a concern the day you killed Tamlin's poor sentinel. And it wasn't a concern for dear Jurian when he butchered my sister. But if it's a problem, well...you can always refuse. Of course, I'll take your life in exchange, but bargains a bargain, is it not?" She snickered, "If you ask me, though, given your history will murder our kind, I do believe I'm offering you a gift."
I couldn't lose anyone else. I couldn't let my sister refuse and die, yet I also never wished for her to suffer the darkness that suffocated my heart. It was a lose-lose situation.
And all I could do was watch.
Feyre looked at the innocent faeries for a long moment. So long Amarantha was forced to ask, "Well?"
My sister's breaths were shaky, I could hear them from where I kneeled on the floor. The lifted her foot and took a small step toward one of the servants with the velvet pillows. Her choice had been made.
I closed my eyes for a moment, wishing I wasn't bearing witness to this. A sighed a long breath before I opened my eyes again, watching as my sister reached out a shivering hand and clasped her fist around the dagger. Pulling it from the pillow and just held it in her hand for a moment
"Not so fast," Amarantha purred, the guard who held the first kneeling figure stepped up reaching out a rough hand and yanking the hood from the faerie's head.
The young faerie boy was frantic as tears streamed across his cheeks. "That's better," the queen mused, "Proceed, Feyre dear. Enjoy it."
"Please," I heard the faerie whisper in a pleading voice and I squeezed my eyes shut. "Please," he said again.
I slowlyâso, slowly opened my eyes. "Don't," he begged as Feyre lifted the dagger higher into the air. "Don't!" he screamed.
Feyre gasped, releasing a loud sob. "Please!" The faerie wailed as more tears spilled across his cheeks like a small river.
It was unbearable to watch from here, I couldn't imagine how Feyre felt. I'd never killed an innocent. Only the worst of the worst. I hoped I never did.
The male continued to beg for his life, pleading and moaning as sobs escaped from his lips in the face of his inevitable death.
My sister lunged, plunging the dagger between his ribs and into his heart. I heard the sound dripping as blood flowed from the faerie's wound and he collapsed. The dagger fell to the floor as feyre dropped it to the cold stone floor. Somehow the sound seemed louder than any echo I'd heard in the room before.
"Very good," Amarantha cheered, "Now onto the next. Oh, don't look so miserable, girls. Aren't you two having fun?" Amarantha questioned as she looked at us. One sister was bloodied with the sin that was forced upon her and the other was kneeling on the ground, tortured as she watched the ones she loved suffer.
The next guard reached up, revealing the face of a young female. Her cheeks were dry and her eyes closed as she whispered a prayer so softly that I couldn't hear. Her eyes opened slowly as she looked up at Feyre, "Cauldron save me," the Feyre whispered the prayer louder.
I recognized the prayer. In the older languages, it was the same, we were taught it in training and I had softly whispered it to some of the people I had ended the lives of.
"Mother hold me," And softly, so quietly I whispered with her, "Mater te tenet," Mother hold you.
I almost felt like she heard me as her eyes connected with mine briefly before they wandered to my sisters again. "Guide me to you," she said, and I spoke, "duc ad illam," guide you to her.
Feyre stood frozen as she listened to the Faerie's prayer, her dagger seemed glued to her side, "Let me pass through the gates; let me smell that immortal land of milk and honey."
"Per portas transeas; Olfacies agros immotales lactis et mellis." Let you pass through the gates; You will smell the immortal lands of milk and honey.
"Let me fear no evil." the girl whispered.
"Non timeas malum." Fear not evil.
"Let me feel no pain."
"Non sentias dolorem." Do not feel pain.
"I'm sorry," My sister sobbed brokenly as she began raising the dagger in the air and aiming it at the Faeries heart.
"Let me enter into eternity." The female finished her prayer.
"Introeat in aeternum." enter into eternity.
I went numb. The world around me ceased to exist and I was stuck in a cycle of geif and pain. I knew my sister wasn't dead, but I could see it in her features that she wished she was. I knew the look all too well. I'd felt that pain too many times. And I knew she would never be herself again.
I vaguely realized that the third Faerie had been revealed and yet I felt so dead that I didn't process anything beyond it.
Death.
It was so infinite. So filled with pain that, I had tried to ignore it and all I had succeeded in doing was ripping myself to shreds in the process.
I stared at the polished stone of the throne room floor, and at that moment I wished I didn't exist. Wished I had been rid from the Earth long ago.
I wished I was dead.
I didn't know how long I stared at the ground. All I knew was the emptiness that took over my entire being.
There was a shrill cry and I gingerly lifted my head up to look at the scene around me finally. My sister had disappeared and the High Lord of Spring Court lay on the ground, bloodied and brutalized as he crawled towards something. I looked up and my eyes found purchased and I found my sister in Amarantha's clutches.
I had been so enraptured in my own chaos of mind that I had failed to notice the world going to hell around me.
I looked at my little sister and watched as blood leaked from her mouth and her body twisted in odd angles. My lungs felt like a weight was suffocating them, and tears began flowing from my eyes and straight to the floor.
I tried. Tried so, so hard to get out of the guard's grasp. I screamed. I cried. I fought. And it was useless. I was useless. My cries ravaged my throat with their harshness.
I looked at the throne room floor watching as tendrils of shadows that leaked from Amarantha slithered for me like snakes ready to pounce. There were dozens as they came for me.
But I paid them no mind as my sister whispered something that made Amarantha pause. Something that made her eyes light with fear.
I didn't register as a tendril of shadow reached me and I was overwhelmed with pain.
I didn't care. I ignored it.
"...The answer to the riddle...is love." feyre spoke louder and my eyes widened before I heard a sharp crack.
And the ear-splitting scream I released from deep inside could have shattered souls.
âââ · ãï¾â: *.â½ .* :âï¾. âââ
A/N: I know this chapter is most definitely not my best writing but the amount of writer's block I experienced was off the charts and I honestly am too excited for the next few to focus on this one. SOrry not sorry.