Rhysandxreader (on the second part)
Warnings: torture, mentions of torture, wing damage (very innacurate from the actual books but anyways), Amarantha (she's a TW herself fr), angst (tell me if i missed anything!!)
a/n: even if people don't enjoy this, I'm proud of it
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Being under the mountain was like living in hell. Rhysand had been forced to do all sorts of atrocities. Invade people's minds and collect information from their memories, torturing them, and killing them with his daemati abilities.
As he sat on the mattress on the bed he was unavoidably sharing with Amarantha, he finally let the tears fall, flowing down his face in thick rivulets. His wings dangled behind him, the talons at the ends scraping against the sheets.
Quiet sobs left his lips, sounding so broken, filled with years of held-back emotions and suppressed feelings. The taste of his salty tears reached his mouth and his hand went to brush them away.
But the tears only fell, uncontrolled. All he had kept shunned down to the depths of his heart escaped, pouring into those tears. His chest ached, his body ached, his soul ached, and the ache wouldn’t go away, sitting heavily on top of his heart.
Rhysand sat there for Mother knows how long, crying, letting it all out. He sat there until the tears dried and the redness in his eyes faded. Yet still, the corners of his eyes prick with tears now and then.
Deep down, there was a sorrow he couldn't calm. A sorrow that would never leave him, no matter how much he wept.
He knew Amarantha would return before he knew it, and then compel him to do unspeakable things anew. Or perhaps she was already there, observing him as he broke while she laughed silently and mocked him.
He hadn’t felt her presence though, and it filled him with a spark of hope. It was always there, prepared to flare up with the smallest chance - yet each time she returned, it was lit out. And every time the hope was dimming. Perhaps it soon would be the time that the spark was finally shut down. Forever. For eternity.
Hope was useless anyway; there was no hope for anyone trapped here. It was pointless, dreaming. Rhysand couldn’t even dream of anything besides the nightmares Amarantha shoves into his mind. He can’t dream of anything other than the faces he has been forced to torture.
And Cauldron, he was a dreamer, a hopeful person. Where was that hopefulness now? Where were the dreams?
At least he knew his family was guarded and out of harm's way. Truly, that was all that mattered to him. Rhysand didn’t care about what happened to him, not at all, so long as his family was secure, he didn’t care if he lived or died under the mountain.
Wiping away the last remnants of his tears, he heard the door unlock, as Amarantha entered the room. “Rhysie, Rhysie… oh, how pathetic you are, look at you, crying,” her voice was full of mockery, yet Rhysand wasn’t infuriated. Instead, he faced her words and accepted them. He knew that in some sense, he was pathetic. In some sense, everything she said is true.
Hence, he believed her, and he forced himself to believe everything she told him. Perhaps the nightmare would end that way. When he finally shows his full acceptance and submission, maybe it will end.
But it all was just a big what-if, and there was no sign of anything changing. It was the same routine, the same days over and over. Wake, please Amarantha. Torment people and then go back to rest, if he could only get a few hours of it.
Rhysand lowered his gaze to the floor, tears blurring his vision again.
He used to think that rebelling against Amarantha would make her stop everything. But soon, his naïve mind was proven wrong. So he tried to submit to her desires, no matter how physically sick it made him. At least she wouldn’t torture him, wouldn’t hurt him.
In truth, he was scared of the suffering, scared of her. Everyone was, and everyone is. Because torture is agony and there’s nothing he could do about it.
Rhysand hated whenever she tortured him, he hated feeling the sting of the scars after.
No one there could heal him, Amarantha wouldn’t allow it. So whenever she tortured him, the blood would stick to his skin for days, weeks before he was allowed one single bath. Then, he would scrub his skin raw to rid himself of the blood.
“Just stop crying already you’re such a useless toy,” she starts again, "can’t even do your job right and please me. I should just kill you already.” She added. Rhysand’s chest tightened. His lips pressed into a thin line as if that could stop the fresh tears pooling in his eyes.
He felt her long nails on his wings, the pads of her fingers trapping the talon of his wing between them. Then she twisted it.
A scream tore from his throat as he propelled forward to his knees. His head dropped to the ground, his forehead meeting the cold stone as he felt the tears against his cheeks.
Sharp sensations tore through him again as she twisted and twisted, intending to pull the talon right out of its place. The pain grew stronger and stronger, his screams drowned out by the burning in his throat.
Rhysand felt something disconnect before he heard her voice. “Well, wouldn’t this make such a lovely charm for my necklace? I’ll wear it like jewelry, just like I do with Jurian’s eye,” she stated, her tone cold.
The feeling of something utterly wrong consumed Rhysand.
Everything was amiss, Amarantha hadn’t simply torn the talon. She took a part of the membrane with it. He heard the sound of it tear and then it was shoved in front of where his forehead was pressed.
It smelled like blood and as he opened his eyes, his gaze fell on the piece of the leather-like skin of his wing in front of his eyes. Bile stung his throat before he threw up. His wings, his Illyrian wings, the one thing that made him feel alive, now one of them torn, scarred for life. And there was no way of fixing it, no way of healing the tissue.
A door slammed shut and Rhysand realized Amarantha left the room. He lifted his face from the ground and looked at his wing, the top bone completely torn off. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. So much so that he wasn't certain if someone was also tearing his heart from his chest with their hands at the same time.
Once, he had been told to embrace his pain but this was unlike any other. It was a pain that made him feel too empty. He was unable to embrace it because this pain was the kind of pain that came from losing a part of yourself - something he has experienced once too many times.
But his wings were still such an important part of him that he couldn’t bear thinking that now, he wouldn’t be able to fly. Never again, he would ever fly alongside Cassian and Azriel, alongside his brothers. He will never be able to feel the wind as it kisses his face.
He would never feel freedom again.
And maybe that was when all of his hope evaporated. Perhaps, that was the day when this spark died.
Because Rhysand felt utterly helpless, utterly hopeless.
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a/n: part 2 coming soon (with a happy ending)
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