eclipsed nova (UTM Feysand)

8

Hands snatched the clothes around my body, pawing and tugging at my limbs. I woke up from a dead sleep in a full panic, gasping for air and eyes wild as I tried to understand what was happening to me. My hands were pressed behind my back, sitting them at an angle that would break my arm if I struggled too hard. My hands were bound together with a coarse rope. A blindfold was slipped over my eyes. One hand yanked my hair hard enough to nearly tear it all out while another forcibly gripped me under my armpits, lifting me into the air simultaneously with the hands seizing my ankles.

I thrashed and kicked, desperately trying to break free, but their grips were much too strong. I gulped down air, turning my head sporadically as I tried to understand where I was being taken. The air seemed colder down this hallway, wetter. It smelled thick and humid, like water, mildew, and limestone. It took me a second before I fully registered the sound.

Rushing water. I hadn't even known there was a water source down this deep. Or that there even could be. There was so much of this Court of underground tunnels I knew nothing about, and that put me at a nearly unconquerable disadvantage. She had the element of surprise on her side every time, and oh how she loved to watch me struggle.

Instead of sitting me down, the hands just dropped me entirely. The water was a roar in my ears now. I was dangerously close to it. Every now and then I felt small droplets of water touch my skin. I got up to my knees and the blindfold was yanked off of my eyes, unknotting my hands from my back as well. I immediately felt dizzy.

Below me on both sides was a raging river of dark water. It came from and disappeared through lower cave tunnels. I was on a stone bridge, with nothing on either side of me except a freefall into death by drowning. Once I was inevitably yanked under the rocks, there would be no saving me, and no air. The stone bridge was only a foot wide. Just enough for me to kneel on and no more. The bridge extended 50 feet in front of me, and each inch was covered in jagged glass, the tiny, shattered shards sticking up from the ground like a premeditated death trap.

Time stood still when my eyes finally caught what awaited at the other side of the bridge. Tamlin was strapped to a chair, ropes around his chest and legs, and tape over his mouth. Amarantha lurked behind him, pacing as she surveyed me, a wicked smile carved into her porcelain cheeks. My heartbeat stuttered in my chest.

"Nice of you to make it," Amarantha cooed condescendingly. "And just in time for all the fun!" She was theatrical tonight, it seemed. I wondered where Rhysand had staggered off to. I couldn't have been asleep more than an hour. He was not with his Queen. So, where had he gone when he stormed off?

Tamlin sat as still as a corpse in his chair. Its legs were bolted into the ground, making it untippable. Why was he being tied up like a hostage? Was he not one of them now?

"What is this?" I cried in horror, fighting the urge to look down at what might await me if I lost my balance. The current was much too strong. I'd never make it back up. I'd give myself no more than seconds before I was trapped in the water beneath the rock on the other side, choking and inhaling water into my lungs. Who even knew how deep it was? The water was dense. You could see nothing below the crashing rush of the waves sliding back between the beds of rock.

"A game!" She shouted with glee, clapping her hands together. "You know how I love my games." She walked over to stand behind Tamlin, resting a hand on either of his shoulders as she watched me panic. "The game is simple, Feyre. All you have to do is decide whether or not it's worth it to you to cross this bridge to Tamlin."

Amarantha cranked a handle in the stone and my breath whooshed from my lungs as a giant blade swung down from the ceiling, slicing the air to one side and consequently slashing back to the other. The blade was shaped like a hammer and was freshly sharpened and polished. She'd been excited about this plan of torture she'd concocted. Like had the weapon installed just for this purpose. With every swing, the blade dropped a bit lower. I felt like I couldn't breathe.