Got a question, Honey?

Rhys dismisses most of the court, but calls for Mor's father, whose name we finally learn (Keir).

Keir bowed again, his face lined with icy resentment as he took in Rhys, then me—

Yeah, gee, can't imagine what reason he could possibly have to resent Rhysand. Real mystery, that one. He's just such a stand-up guy.

Cassian gave Keir a slow nod that told him he remembered—and would never forget—what the Steward of the Hewn City had done to his own daughter. But it was from Azriel that Keir cringed. From the sight of Truth-Teller. One day, I realized, Azriel would use that blade on Mor’s father. And take a long, long while to carve him up.

There's a lot of this kind of shit going on. Posturing. And yet, I am 999% sure that nothing ever comes of it. It's just posturing and wasted ink. The villain shaking their fist and saying "you'll regret this!", only you know the hero never will.

But, Rhys sends Mor, Cassian and Azriel away. Special attention being paid to Azriel, since he's now off to do... whatever the fuck the reason was they came here. I've legit raged it out of my head.

“Greetings, milord,” Keir said, his deep voice polished smooth. “And greetings to your … guest.” Rhys’s hand flattened on my thigh as he angled his head to look at me. “She is lovely, isn’t she?”

Why is this necessary? Why is this necessary? Would Rhys and all his terror-inducing theatrics not have been enough to distract Kier on his own? Why does he need to make Feyre re-enact her trauma from Under the Mountain??

Keir says it's all been quiet lately.

[R]“No one for me to punish?” A cat playing with his food. “Unless you’d like for me to select someone here, no, milord.” Rhys clicked his tongue. “Pity.” He again surveyed me, then leaned to tug my earlobe with his teeth.

And yet, a mere few lines ago, the book expected us to believe that Keir looked like a "sullen child" compared to Rhys. This is an actual fucking joke.

Well, Rhys begins feeling Feyre up again, and it's all very focused on the sexy feelings she gets from it............ you know what? For my own sanity, I'm just going to assume that SJM has an exhibitionist kink and is fundamentally incapable of understanding that most people don't actually like it when this shit happens to them. It's a lot more palatable than the horror-fest that's been the rest of this chapter.

Keir began mentioning people I didn’t know in the court, bland reports on marriages and alliances, blood-feuds, and Rhys let him talk.

You know, just all the stuff that a ruler is meant to actually care about.......

Seriously, can you imagine being Keir here? His High Lord finally blights graces them with his presence after god knows how long, and all these issues that need to be brought to his attention have been piling up. And then, as you're trying to report them to him, he doesn't even bother feigning interest, just feels up his latest sex toy in front of you instead. Again, why is the book treating it like it's just so strange/unfair that Keir resents this guy? I sure as fuck would in his place.

We get more description of Rhys feeling her up. It's standard Maas fare, with tightening breasts and aching cores and whatnot.

But Keir said at last, as if his own self-control slipped the leash, “I had heard the rumors, and I didn’t quite believe them.” [...] “But it seems true: Tamlin’s pet is now owned by another master.” “You should see how I make her beg,” Rhys murmured,

...........................I don't even know. There's only so many times I can say the same thing over and over again. He's not even trying to deny that she's his pet. Because she is. That's all she is. His pet, to play with as he sees fit, to give treats when she does as he asks her.

Keir clasped his hands behind his back. “I assume you brought her to make a statement.” “You know everything I do is a statement.” “Of course. This one, it seems, you enjoy putting in cobwebs and crowns.”

Tell me this doesn't sound like a completely done adult indulging the latest fancy of an annoying child. Except the child is allegedly a grown-ass man, and his fancy is literally assaulting a woman in front of everyone. None of whom consented to watching this little display, btw.

And I said to Keir in a voice that belonged to another woman, “Perhaps I’ll put a leash on you.”

"A voice that belonged to another woman." Dissociating, or Rhys's mind control? You decide! I don't know which one is worse, actually!

Rhys’s approval tapped against my mental shield,

Seriously, what the fuck is the shield meant to do if he can still convey exactly what he wants even when it's up? I mean, I know it's a stupid question, I've already said many times that the shield is pointless. But seriously, I think it's only there as a token excuse for why it's okay for Rhys to invade her mind. "No, but, he taught her to shield! Yeah I know the shields have never actually stopped him from doing anything, but he still taught her! That makes it okay!" No it doesn't. Sit down and shut up.

Rhys didn’t dare break from his mask, but the light kiss he pressed beneath my ear told me enough. Apology and gratitude—and more apologies. He didn’t like this any more than I did.

And where are you getting that from, Feyre? Is he beaming that into your head, hmm? Also, much as I've been ranting about how much I don't like it, there hasn't actually been all that much from Feyre about what she actually feels about this situation. It's all been either me projecting reading between the lines, or SJM's exhibitionist kink slipping through. Very little about what Feyre thinks at all. Which is, if you'll recall from last post, my chief complaint in this whole situation.

And yet to get what we needed, to buy Azriel time … He’d do it. And so would I.

Again, Keir has to make all his reports to Rhys regardless of whether or not Feyre is there. Why is she necessary to "distract" him? What does her presence accomplish that Rhys's presence on its own wouldn't?

I wondered, then, with his hands beneath my breasts and between my legs, what Rhys wouldn’t give of himself.

Bruh. Shut up. Shut the actual hell up. I. What??? What the fuck has Rhys actually "given" in this situation? All he's done is power trip all over the place and grope Feyre. Bitch hasn't "given" shit. "Ohhh but he just hates doing that so much" well, maybe don't do it then???? Literally no one is forcing him???? The people at Hewn City might even like him more if he actually listens to their reports and stops making them kneel and watch while he feels up helpless women in front of them. Just a thought?

Anyway, yes, if you guessed that this is the lead-in to another segue in which we're expected to pity Rhys, you are 100% correct, because that's exactly what happens.

Wondered if … if perhaps the arrogance and swagger … if they masked a male who perhaps thought he wasn’t worth very much at all.

In fairness, narcissists rarely do have actual self-esteem. That's why they aggrandise so much, to compensate for it.

And I said into [his mind], You are good, Rhys. You are kind. This mask does not scare me. I see you beneath it.

Please just fucking kill me. End it now. I've written the equivalent of a doctorate by now on how this just objectively isn't true.

Feyre wants to know why he stopped his groping. Fuck me, I thought we were done.

I let go of the part of me that heard their words—whore, whore, whore— Let go of the part that said those words alongside them—traitor, liar, whore— And I just became.

Whatever the fuck that means. Probably that Rhys has crushed the last of her self-esteem, and now she no longer wonders if maybe this isn't the best idea for her.

Feyre starts thinking about how she's totally going to catch on fire. Rhys's groping is just that hot, I guess.

Easy, he said with wicked amusement through the open sliver in my shield. If you become a living candle, poor Keir will throw a hissy fit. And then you’d ruin the party for everyone. Because the fire would let them all know I wasn’t normal—and no doubt Keir would inform his almost-allies in the Autumn Court. Or one of these other monsters would.

Er, no, I don't think it's that deep, Feyre. It's just that you're sitting in Rhys's lap, and he doesn't want his peepee burned. Also, I'm pretty sure the only one who has done anything monstrous in the whole time we've been here is Rhysand. Show, book, don't tell. We're going to believe what we see.

More groping, now with added grinding from behind.

I had been so cold, so lonely, for so long, and my body cried out at the contact, at the joy of being touched and held and alive.

I'd like to remind everyone, because the book sure as fuck isn't going to, that this is taking place while Feyre is Under a Mountain, dressed and paraded around in the same skimpy outfits she was drugged and assaulted in for two months straight Under the last Mountain, being groped and felt up just like what happened Under that Mountain, by the very same guy who did all this back then no less. And this is after we've spent the whole book so far absolutely fucking WALLOWING in Feyre's Mountain-related depression. And no, no, it still has not acknowledged that maybe this is something Feyre needs to have a reaction to. It's kind of acknowledged that it happened, in the most roundabout ways possible - by pointing out that the dresses are the same, and by saying that people "expect" her to be Rhysand's whore (presumably because of what he did to her last time - the book is very careful not to say he did anything, though).

It's like when you see those corridors full of lasers in spy movies, and the spy just pretzel-cartwheels their way through it. That's this book with acknowledging that Rhys is a fucking rapist. It'll acknowledge that something happened to Feyre. But it will never actually blame Rhys for it.

More details, and more of insisting that this is totally to distract Kier. He's standing nearby, holding the wine Rhys sent him to fetch earlier.

I think he’s so disgusted that he might have given me the orb just to get out of here, Rhys said in my mind,

Says enough about what Rhys is doing to her, honestly. Remember, this is meant to be the Court of Nightmares, that den of evil, decadent, hedonistic depravity, where women are just objects to be used by men. And Keir is the one disgusted by what's going on. But, what does Feyre have to say to that?

You and I put on a good show, I said back.

This book has the self-awareness of an actual turnip. This is literally just SJM projecting her exhibitionist kink onto her SA-victim main character. It never even occurred to her that maybe this isn't the context for it.

The person who said that, husky and sultry—I’d never heard that voice come out of me before. Even in my mind.

Feyre over here just casually developing DID in response. God, could you imagine the clusterfuck if the book actually tried to do something like that?

I ground against him, trying to shift those hands away from what he’d learn—

Bitch, he can literally read your mind.

But the she finds out that... Rhys has a boner! Dun dun dun! Because obviously this book is the kind of trash that immediately assumes boner = ready and willing, and not just the physiological response to stimulation in the area, wanted or not.

Every thought eddied from my head. Only a thrill of power remained as I writhed along that impressive length.

That.... is certainly an image. I see it's not just Crescent City where we fail to understand what "writhing" means.

Keir just watched and watched and watched. Rigid. Horrified. Stuck here, until Rhys released him—

And Rhys wonders why they all hate him. Most people don't like having this shit forced on them against their will. Especially not when they're just trying to make their reports.

—and not thinking twice about why. Or where the spymaster had gone.

No. Stop. You'll never convince me that this bullshit is necessary, book. Surely, Keir isn't the only person in the city capable of wondering what Azriel's up to, or who has eyes on the orb? It's a fucking stupid justification. Piss-weak. Less than piss-weak.

His arms tightened around me, and my face burned—perhaps a bit from shame, but— Rhys sensed my focus, my fire slip. It’s fine, he said,

Yeah, nah, can't help but read this as him sensing his mind control slipping and jumping in to correct it. Sorry, book.

Anyway, Feyre randomly thinks of Tamlin and decides she's now nauseated that she's had another man's hands over her... so soon after dumping him, presumably? She cuts off before she specifies.

Fighting my nausea, I pasted a sleepy, lust-fogged smile on my face. Right as Azriel returned and gave Rhys a subtle nod. He’d gotten the orb.

Bruh. This literally just undoes any feeble "distraction" that was meant to provide. Keir will just be there like "hmm, Rhysand was happily feeling up that woman until his spymaster came back and nodded. Wonder if he was up to anything."

Mor starts feeling up Azriel as well, and apparently that's meant to make everyone think that he'd been there the whole time? Whatever, book. I just want this chapter to be over already.

Rhys finally allows Keir to deliver the wine he asked him to fetch... several pages ago, now.

Rhys set it on the ground beside the throne, a stupid task he’d thought up for the Steward to remind him of his powerlessness, that this throne was not his.

And yet, Keir is the one who's meant to look like a "sullen child." Ngl, I'm getting low-key (well, no, lies, it's high-key) Joffrey vibes from Rhys. This is exactly the sort of thing that he would find amusing, power plays just for the sake of it. Except this book expects us to think it's sexy, instead of pathetic and cruel.

But wait! Possible Rhys criticism detected! Quick, bring out the pity parade!

Maybe—maybe for all our teasing, after Amarantha, he didn’t want to be touched by a woman like that. Didn’t even enjoy being wanted like that. I had been tortured and tormented, but his horrors had gone to another level.

Gee, if only he had the power to just like, not make plans like this if it bothered him. No one held a gun to his head and told him to tell you that he had to make a plan that involved groping you. And also, uh, while I don't disagree that your two torments were on different levels, I suspect I'd disagree strongly about what those levels were. Remember, in an earlier chapter, I flagged that the book made sure to word things so that Rhys still maintained agency in his service to Amarantha - it framed it so that it was a choice, a sacrifice he made, to (allegedly) protect Velaris. Feyre was given no such dignity. Then or now.

Feyre hops off Rhys's lap and goes over to Cassian.

But as I passed Keir, even with the High Lord at my back, he hissed almost too quietly to hear, “You’ll get what’s coming to you, whore.”

*sighs* Oh, Keir. You were actually doing so well as a trapped underling to an evil master. But the cartoon virus went and got you too, huh? Anyway, this is all just an excuse for Rhys to posture and go apeshit violent on him, and, uh...

Bone cracked. Keir screamed. And I watched—I watched as his arm fractured into not two, not three, but four different pieces, the skin going taut and loose in all the wrong spots— Another crack. His elbow disintegrated. My stomach churned.

I can't help but feel the punishment is a teeeeeensy bit disproportionate to the crime. You know, like how tyrants execute people for speaking ill of Dear Leader.

Rhys chuckled. He said to his Steward, “When you wake up, you’re not to see a healer. If I hear that you do … ” Another crack—Keir’s pinkie finger went saggy. The male shrieked. The heat that had boiled my blood turned to ice. “If I hear that you do, I’ll carve you into pieces and bury them where no one can stand a chance of putting you together again.”

And presumably, this is meant to convince us that Keir would never dare disobey, even once Rhys leaves. So, I ask again - why is Rhys, the Most Powerful and Uberscary High Lord Ever, completely incapable of affecting change on this place?

Because he doesn't want to change it. He's happy with it how it is. He is choosing to leave Hewn City in this state. That is his decision as its leader. It benefits him. He's willing to let every person in Hewn City, people just like Mor, on whose behalf he's allegedly so offended, suffer, just because it benefits him to have them as shields for Velaris. This guy is actual, proper, villainous scum. Irredeemable scum.