note: Null chapters are short fragments (of a thought).

He takes ruthless pleasure in ripping through their minds, with no delicacy or attention to pain. Not just because he'd seen what they would have done to her, seen that they would have taken her apart, and used her as he has been used, and wasted her heart and rent her capable hands into shreds—

No, gods, it's because for once there is no shame. He'd stopped feeling the guilt a long time ago, because guilt is for those who can still atone, and be forgiven. But the shame, it rests heavy in his heart every time Amarantha has him invade a mind or break a spirit. With these picts though—there is only satisfaction in hurting those who would have hurt her, satisfaction in defying Amarantha in even this small, pathetic way.

.

.

After he drags the picts to Amarantha, after she is done tearing them apart, after she fucks him for his success, Rhys sits in his suite alone and smothers the fire and the torchlight until he is cradled in darkness. In the familiar quiet, he closes his eyes and tries to recall every detail of her face, cast in the flickering shadows of the bonfires raging high in the distance. Armor for the coming decades.