“ravella.” the name falls flat between them. “blackwood.” she moves stand, a scoff falling from her lips as any number of memories and assocations tumble through her mind’s eye. she should have known not to get comfortable, complcaent — happy in this new life of hers. she should have known. life always dealt her a horrible hand, always gave her happiness only to pry it from her hands. ( ravella blackwood. ty’s former betrothed. no doubt might have been his wife, in another life of theirs. it’s funny, almost — no mention of a betrothal to rhys made when they spoke. maybe the little thing had more brains than celaena gave her credit for. )
she rounded once more, facing him — her height somewhat shorter than his, but there’s no mistaking it: celaena takes up the room with her ruined, bitter and twisted expression. “so what am i supposed to think, rhysand?” her brows listed. “you say you did not plan this. yet of all the fucking women in the goddamn seven kingdoms, you ask her.” the word was spat with disgust and hurt — and maybe, even a tiny bit of fear. “do you find some sick joy, in parading ty’s former… playthings in front of him? reminding him of his past actions? refusing to let him move on, look to the future and the life he deserves?” she may not have known the details of what happened between them — but she knew her husband. she knew what he was and what he did. she knew enough to gleam some idea of what happened. something happened between them, no doubt — the marriage later broken enough and another woman broken, littering his past. ( normally, it doesn’t bother celaena. she doesn’t care about the lovers he takes, men or women, doesn’t care when it meant he was distracted and leaving her alone. when they were at each other’s throats, it was the biggest blessing in disguise. but everything’s different now. she’s a parent, a mother. her marriage is good, finally, after too long. she doesn’t want to loose that again. ) “or maybe… maybe you enjoy parading them in front of me. reminding me what kind of man i married and that this… this is something i have to deal with.” celaena scoffed. “for a man who claims to be my friend, you surely have an amusing way of showing it.”
It was worse than he thought and Rhys twisted his hands in his lap as she stood and towered over him. She was like a vengeful god, seething with rage and there was no mistaking the disgust in her voice. Rhys had known she would hate that he was betrothed to Ravella, and he had prepared himself to sit silently and allow Celaena to voice every complaint she had about it with no challenge from him. But his jaw clenched at the accusations levelled against him. Being angry about his choice was one thing, but believing he had acted out of any malice towards her or Tyrion was not something he could bear, and Rhys got to his feet. They had argued before, but it had never been on this scale since Rhys was always the one more likely to back down and allow Cel to have what she wanted, but not this time. This time he intended to stand his ground.
“I did not plan this!” His raised voice echoed throughout the empty library. “Her brother heard I had started seeking a wife, and he suggested I meet with Ravella. I did so as a courtesy to him, and given what happened with Ty and Ravella, I did not expect her to want anything to do with her former betrothed’s best friend.” At first, Rhys had only intended to tell the truth of how the match had come about, but as he went on, all of his hurt and rage at what Celaena had accused him of poured out. “We were able to put what happened with Ty behind us because neither of us wanted to be defined by past or present relationships with him. We talked, and we found we had a lot in common and both needed things from a marriage that the other could provide. That was why I agreed to the betrothal, and not because of any malicious desire to hurt you or Ty!” He paused for a moment, breathing heavily, and although every inch of him screamed of his anger, his green eyes gave away just how hurt he really was. “How could you think that, Celaena? How could you believe that after everything we’ve been through, I would ever want to hurt you or Ty on purpose?” He shook his head in disbelief. “This is my betrothal, and it did not happen because of anything to do with you or Tyrion. I agreed to it because gods damn it, I actually like Ravella! She knows how it is to feel alone in a sea of people, and I need someone like that.”
Too much of the truth was leaving his lips now, but Rhys couldn’t stop it. The cork of all the pent up feelings had burst from the bottle, and those feelings were pouring out of him whether he liked it or not. “I know your marriage is difficult for you sometimes, but you cannot deny that there are plenty of days when it is good, especially since the birth of your son. You have someone to share your life with, and despite all the arguments and misdeeds, doesn’t Tyrion always come home to you? And yet you won’t allow me to seek that happiness for myself because it reminds you of the bad times in your marriage? Would you rather I be alone forever, so that I might be permanently at your beck and call to comfort you when Tyrion does something wrong?” He shook his head, and the anger that had been flowing out of him changed to grief. “I can’t, Celaena. I can’t keep doing this. Do you know how much it hurts? Every time I offer you calming words and you smile at me, every time I hold you in my arms so that you have a shoulder to lean on, it always feels like my guts are being torn out. You use me for your own comfort and then leave without thinking of how if affects me to be your rock when I feel for you the way I do. Well now it is taking its toll and that rock is crumbling away. To have you so close and not to have you at all is torture. But I support you, and I watch as you smile and get back to how you were before your husband upset you, and then I have to watch you leave and go back to him and I must bite my tongue to stop myself from begging you to stay with me. And then I must go through it all again when Tyrion does another stupid thing because he doesn’t appreciate what he has, and I go to bed every night envying him because he has you and then despising myself for wanting my best friend’s wife.”
Green eyes glinted with tears as he looked at her, wanting to fall on his knees and beg her to love him, or else cut out his heart with a knife because it would hurt less. “Do you see now why I sought out a betrothal in the first place? If I am wed then I will have a wife and a marriage to focus on, and it will not only keep me from my loneliness, but it will also provide a distraction from thinking of you. I love you, Celaena.” Finally, those three words were out in the open. They had always known that they lurked beneath the surface, but to admit to them would only lead to heartbreak because he knew she could not love him back. “But you’re not mine. You were never mine, and you never can be. I need to accept that and then maybe my torment can finally be at an end.”
