Amarantha

"Next."

Amarantha's slender, two pointed fingers waved off the mess before her dais. Empty obsidian eyes flickering to the Attor in silent command. Away with the filth. The tripes of sinews and artfully grotesquerie way she broke each joint of the three prisoners before her were getting too... predictable. The way they screamed and gurgled in their own blood was even beginning to feel dull.

The only thing that made a singular beat of her pulse raise was when one of their orbs popped out of their capsuled socket while they were still well and conscious. Now, that was a glorious scream. Shrilled in pure pain before she cut it off by gutting the wench. Still, it was turning monotonous. And when her next playthings were dragged through the great hall, she rolled her eyes in clear boredom.

She let out a languid sigh, her slim wrist bending to accommodate her pointed chin as she passively watched each and every prisoner struggle against the restraints of the dark faeries trawling them through the polished red marbled stone. Her gaze then flickers to Tamlin beside her. Unmoving, emotionless. Again, lacking. Amarantha sneers, aggravation rushing up her neck as her lips pulled back from her teeth. The soft hiss hushed the whole hall in terror. Her sneer turned into a momentary delighted smile, scanning her petrified and voiceless royal subjects.

Better.

Two prisoners were dumped before her. Trembling, drowning in their own snot and tears underneath their shawled faces. Amarantha's scarlet lips twisted in disgust. Weak. Pathetic. A sharp rise from her throne made every head snap to her direction. She felt a jolt of blood rush to her head.

"I said. Three." Her menacing voice echoed through the great hall, her coal gaze flickering through the halls in search of her third. It's always three prisoners before her. She liked- loved it that way. There was nothing like making two watch, then the last one watching having to grovel, cower, and beg when they've seen what she'd done to the other two disloyal subjects. She typically leaves the other two wheezing from the last crook of their trachea or have them slowly suffocate in their own vital fluids. It amused her- seeing them at the edge of death.

Amarantha could admit that every sadistic artistry in her repertoire has been tried and practised again and again through various bodies, genders, and creatures in the last 500 and some years. She's seen it all. And still, the untainted faces crumpling in abhorrence when witnessing what she's done to bodies merely filled of syrupy metallic liquid and throbbing viscera were always the grandest response of them all. The picking apart from each portion while their expressions stripped into unearthly dread.

Mother knows, that nothing has brought her more supercilious warmth.

A thud on the door caught her attention. Chin tilting up towards the floor to ceiling stone doors now creaking open once again. There. Her third. Thrashing and fighting her faeries. Faeries. They needed to be restrained by two, in how much they proved to be difficult to handling. Amarantha simply smiled and settled back down on her dais as she watched her final plaything be brought to her.

The body growled, sneered, then grunted as they were tackled down before her. Almost knocking down the other two prisoners, who have gone eerily silent. Most likely, listening to their surroundings, as all their other senses have either been restrained or annulled in temperance. Amarantha's curled blood-red lips, spread wider, then a shrilled laugh left her lips, boasting and bouncing off the stoned walls.

"Unshawl this one first." Amarantha leaned in closer to take a better look at this futile prisoner. Fighting for breath that they'll lose in a matter of hours. The Attor took a step forward, shagging off the shawl of the anticipated prisoner. She grinned wickedly as suspense built. Will they spit at her? And then she'll have to split their tongue in two and try to have them hold in their spit. If they can't, she'll make the other two bite off both ends. Oh- how quaint. A glint appeared in her depthless eyes.

Amarantha's breath bated.

What met her gaze was not one of fear, no. Not even of defiance or fury. But of stupefied awe. Amarantha felt golden tendrils run up her veins and through her chest, spreading all throughout her gut. She abruptly rose and bellowed out, "Out." Her sharp intake of breath clattered in sync with everyone's hurried clacks on stone.

"EVERYBODY. OUT!" Her sneer, deep from her gut, rose up her chest and through her snarled teeth as she met the eyes that dared to bond with her. She did not look to see if everyone was out. Only that the two prisoners beside her mate has disappeared, and the stone doors have thudded shut in a matter of seconds.

Amarantha's long, wiry fingers dug into your scalp, carmine nails pointed to impale through to make you shed and wound. She snagged on as she yanked you by the head and winnowed in her chambers. She was met with Rhysand's naked body on her ruby silk sheets, violet eyes met hers with a flash of shock before it quickly packed back into the expression she desired on him. It was an understatement of how irate she felt of having the Night Court filth on her sheets when it should be you.

"I have no use for you. Leave." She threatened the High Lord and without even another blink, Rhysand has winnowed away. Her glaringly voided eyes then look down at you, your twisted expression showed her that her nails digging centimetres through your oozing scalp was the least of her worries.

"I will only say this once. Obey or die." Then she slung you onto her mattress.

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