Rhysand

The stranger is an unmasked High Fae male of striking beauty, with dark hair, pale skin, blue-violet eyes, and black clothing. His controlled stillness and charm make Feyre read him as more dangerous than his elegant manner first suggests.

He can partially change his body into a more monstrous form, replacing his fingers and toes with black talons and unfurling massive black membranous wings while otherwise remaining humanoid.

Stars and a mountain are tattooed on his knees. He explains the markings as a statement that he bows before no one and nothing except his crown.

At need, he can hide his wings and present himself in polished High Lord finery rather than Illyrian fighting leathers. He uses that outward elegance as a deliberate public image, especially when he wants opponents to overlook his martial identity and origins.

Rhysand's complete beast form is a huge winged creature with talons, dark scales or feathers, and a nightmarish face. He dislikes unleashing it, but its appearance is terrifying enough to send Hybern soldiers fleeing.

Rhysand uses courtly performance, mockery, and cruelty as protective cover in Amarantha's court. He flatters Amarantha when necessary, refuses to explain his motives until it suits him, and admits that some of his provocations are deliberate attempts to shape Tamlin's eventual response.

Because he believes the things he loves are taken from him when others learn about them, Rhysand guards them closely. He admits that he loves his wings and flying, making his confinement Under the Mountain a personal deprivation as well as a political captivity.

Rhysand often teaches by provocation and controlled danger, especially when he wants Feyre to act rather than shut down. He baits her into anger during her bargain week, sends her into the Weaver's cottage to test her panic and tracking ability, and leaves her exposed as bait for the Attor because he believes she is safe under his watch.

Away from his public mask, he carries persistent guilt over tactical choices and civilian risk. He worries over market prices in Velaris, blames himself for the Summer Court theft becoming traceable, and accepts even a feud with Summer if that is the cost of stopping Hybern and helping Amren.

Rhysand can accept a direct rebuke when he has crossed Feyre's boundaries. After she condemns his use of her as bait, he apologizes; after the Court of Nightmares, he is shaken by what she witnessed and insists he will not lock her away or force her to stay behind as Tamlin did.

His stated dream is a freer, more peaceful Night Court than the one he inherited. He once wanted the High Lord's power so he could rule unlike his father, protect his people, improve Illyrian standing, and root corruption out of his lands.

When those he loves are endangered, Rhysand habitually tries to absorb impossible political and personal burdens himself. He acknowledges that desperation can drive him into bad decisions, particularly when the alternative appears to risk his court or family.

Attacks on people under Rhysand's protection can provoke lethal anger, but he also assumes responsibility for repairing the harm. After Hybern's agents violate the library sanctuary, he kills the attackers after searching their minds, strengthens the defenses, and spends hours listening to and reassuring the priestesses.

From his soldiers he conceals his grief and fear so that they see a confident commander. In private, he mourns those he expects to lose and admits that centuries of experience have not made war easier.

Rhysand judges wartime choices by the kind of society they will create after the conflict. Even while exhausted and outnumbered, he commits the allied forces to defending vulnerable humans because abandoning them would betray the future he wants faeries to build.

After his death and revival, Rhysand still carries trauma. At times he grows distant, touches his chest, and seems unable to believe fully that he survived.

Rhysand rejects mental compulsion as a tool for enforcing obedience within his court, even when Illyrian resistance tempts him to use it. During public audiences, he listens closely to familiar petitions, asks detailed questions, and personally sends written answers; he also lets Feyre learn the work of ruling at her own pace rather than forcing her into public authority before she is ready.

When court business overwhelms him, Rhysand neglects rest and food, returning from work visibly exhausted after eating almost nothing all day. Feyre recognizes when he has pushed himself too far and makes him stop long enough to care for himself.

Rhysand helped Mor and Clotho establish the library as a sanctuary for abused and traumatized females. Centuries earlier, he also changed Illyrian inheritance law so females could inherit property, although Illyrian families do not always obey the reform.

Even when offered power beyond his existing court, Rhysand refuses Amren's proposal that he use Nesta's Made weapons to claim authority as High King. He rejects the attempt to expand his rule over all Prythian.

Rhysand's first named confrontation with Feyre is hostile and invasive. He recognizes her as the human from Fire Night, breaks through glamour, immobilizes her, scrapes at her mind, threatens what Amarantha would do to her, and leaves without deciding whether to report her.

After Rhysand's visit to Spring, Tamlin treats him as proof that Feyre can no longer remain safely at the manor. Feyre also understands his possible return as another danger Tamlin would have to face for her sake.

Rhysand saves Feyre from death after the first trial only after forcing her into a bargain. The healing leaves a black Night Court tattoo on her left arm and hand, and Feyre concludes that the visible claim is meant to hurt Tamlin as much as preserve her life.

Under the Mountain, Rhysand turns Feyre's bargain into nightly public control. He has her painted, dressed for display, brought before the court as his claimed possession, and forced to drink faerie wine, while using the paint to track whether anyone else touches her.

Rhysand secretly helps Feyre through the second trial by using the eye in her bargain tattoo to punish wrong choices and leave the correct lever painless. Afterward he speaks into her mind, forces her to stand and walk out with dignity, and keeps her from breaking down in front of Amarantha.

Long before Feyre enters the conflict, Rhysand and Tamlin share a hostile history. Rhysand speaks to Tamlin as someone he has known for forty-nine years, says Amarantha singled him out partly because Rhysand's father killed Tamlin's father and brothers, and insists that Amarantha's control over him is coercive rather than willing service.

Rhysand protects Feyre and Tamlin from discovery in the hidden passage by making the scene appear to implicate himself instead. In Feyre's cell, he says he has limited his physical contact with her so Tamlin may one day believe that Rhysand was, in a narrow sense, on her side, and he also admits that he could have demanded far more time from Feyre in their bargain but chose not to.

Outside the mountain, Rhysand meets Feyre alone before she leaves with Tamlin and gives a plain reason for his final rebellion: he did not want her to fight alone or die alone. Their parting ends abruptly when he sees something on her face, reacts with shock, and disappears without explanation.

Rhysand interrupts Feyre's wedding to Tamlin by invoking their bargain at the moment he knows through the bond that she is about to refuse. In the Night Court he insists she is a guest rather than a prisoner, begins teaching her to read and shield her mind, and says he is not her enemy despite Tamlin's view of him.

Through the bargain bond, Rhysand becomes alarmed by Feyre's silence and terror, enough that he sometimes tugs on it to confirm she is alive. After Tamlin confines her in the Spring manor, Rhysand's side breaks through the house-shield and brings her out; he watches over her, offers refuge, and renews the offer that she work for him in exchange for security.

Rhysand's bond with Velaris is personal as well as political. He dreamed of the city throughout his imprisonment, used his remaining power to hide it and its people from Amarantha, and protected only that one city because he did not have strength enough to shield more.

His Inner Circle is both personal family and governing structure. Amren is his Second and a last-resort power, Mor is his Third and effectively rules his cities, Cassian is his supreme battlefield commander, and Azriel is one of his Illyrian warriors.

Rhysand gives Feyre a formal place in his court. He tells her she is paid the same wage as every other member, sets up an account for her in Velaris, and presents her in Summer as part of his Inner Circle and as his emissary to the mortal lands.

As attraction, jealousy, and trust enter what began as a bargain, Rhysand's relationship with Feyre turns openly vulnerable. He admits jealousy over Tarquin, sends private desire through the bond, explains that his harsh kiss Under the Mountain came from jealousy and anger, and tells Feyre at Starfall that he is glad he met her.

Rhysand's history with Tamlin began as friendship. Rhys taught Tamlin Illyrian techniques, Tamlin's family used that connection in the murders of Rhys's mother and sister, and Rhys joined his father in retaliation at the Spring Court before stopping him from killing Tamlin.

Feyre's agency becomes a hard boundary in Rhysand's response to Spring's attempt to retrieve her. If she had chosen to take Lucien's hand, he says he would have endured it, but if Lucien had taken her by force, Rhys would have torn apart the world to get her back.

Rhysand admits that Feyre is his mate and that he knew for certain when Amarantha was killing her, with the bond fully snapping into place after she was Made. He kept silent because Feyre loved Tamlin, was traumatized, had asked only for distraction and fun rather than a mating bond, and he refused to use the bond to coerce her or secure political protection.

His enmity with Hybern includes an older wartime captivity. During the War, Amarantha's forces chained him with power-nullifying restraints, shot his wings with ash bolts, beat him, and tortured his soldiers in front of him, but he did not yield military information.

Rhysand's service to Amarantha was a survival bargain he chose after she stripped away his power and threatened what he had hidden. For fifty years he performed the role she wanted, hated what it required, and used her trust to keep attention away from Velaris and his true court.

Feyre accepts Rhysand as her mate by declaring her love and honoring the bond. He answers with open emotion, discusses formal recognition and marriage only as choices she may make if she wants them, and works off the dangerous edge of the newly accepted bond before returning home to their Inner Circle.

Rhysand and Feyre remain linked after the king of Hybern apparently severs their bargain bond in public. He understands her apparent surrender as a joint deception, reveals to his Inner Circle that he made her High Lady in secret, and answers her hidden touch across the surviving mating bond while she is back in Spring.

Through the strained mating bond, Rhysand maintains faint, covert contact with Feyre while she works inside the Spring Court. He reports that their family is alive, expresses his love and admiration, and asks when she is coming home, while both of them keep the exchanges brief enough to protect her cover.

Rhysand searches Spring when the mating bond goes silent but cannot track Feyre through the faebane and her concealed scent. Their reunion restores their ordinary companionship as well as their physical intimacy, and he immediately offers to take her to her sisters while waiting for her choice.

In public, Rhysand and Feyre agree to present a unified front while retaining the freedom to challenge each other honestly in private or through their bond. He explicitly treats her as an equal ruler rather than a subordinate.

Rhysand publicly establishes Feyre's shared authority in the Court of Nightmares by seating her on its sole throne, ordering the court to bow, and taking the throne's arm beside her. The display declares that she rules with him and cannot be treated as his possession or bargaining piece.

Before the other High Lords, Rhysand openly presents Feyre as his mate and High Lady, entitled to issue orders and exercise authority in her own right. He says he elevated her because he loves her, not because of her power, and deliberately allows her to claim her standing without leaning on his touch or intervention.

Rhysand's hatred of Tamlin remains intense, but he accepts that Tamlin may be working against Hybern from inside the alliance and may still fight for Prythian. The discovery that Tamlin burned the wings of Rhysand's murdered mother and sister brings Rhys horrified relief that the remains were not preserved as trophies.

Even while respecting Feyre's freedom to act independently, Rhysand asks her to leave word before disappearing in wartime because uncertainty over her safety terrifies him. Their argument with Cassian exposes the same fierce attachment throughout the Inner Circle: each of them is willing to risk death for the others, and Rhys struggles to accept that he cannot protect his family from every wound.

Before the final battle, Rhysand formally thanks Mor, Amren, Cassian, and Azriel for what each has given him and names them his family. The farewell acknowledges his expectation that some or all of them may die while preserving the chosen-family bond at the heart of his court.

Feyre and the other High Lords each give Rhysand a kernel of life, and he returns. Their restored bond remains intact after his revival.

Together, Rhysand and Feyre make a new bargain that when their final death comes, they will go together. Matching tattoos appear on their left arms, restoring a visible mark of their bond.

Rhysand asks Mor to serve as a mobile envoy on the continent while he handles the Court of Nightmares and the consequences of his bargain with Keir. Although the assignment is important to the unstable peace, he presents it as an offer and insists that Mor retains the right to refuse.

A Solstice tradition from their childhood is preserved by Rhysand, Cassian, and Azriel: an hours-long snowball fight at the mountain cabin, fought from constructed forts without magic, wings, or breaks.

Feyre and Rhysand decide to begin trying for a child. Rhys repeatedly confirms that Feyre is certain before immediately stopping his contraceptive tonic, treating the choice as a shared commitment rather than an expectation placed upon her.

Rhysand is openly hostile toward Nesta and privately admits that her dormant power frightens him. He supports Feyre's intervention against Nesta — keeping the strategy ready, summoning Amren, and having Nesta's building condemned and repurposed as a shelter, and pairing it with Cassian's assignment to her — but yields when Feyre orders him not to dominate the confrontation himself.

During Feyre's pregnancy, Rhysand surrounds her with a powerful shield and initially wants to remain constantly at her side. He keeps the pregnancy secret from distant allies while treating any possible threat to Feyre or the child with lethal protectiveness.

Rhysand's distrust of Nesta leads him to enter her mind and order her to treat Gwyn kindly, assuming cruelty before Nesta has done anything. Cassian rebukes him for the intrusion, and Rhys acknowledges that he judged Nesta unfairly.

After learning that Feyre's winged child may make the birth fatal, Rhysand exhausts every source of medical knowledge he can reach but finds no solution. He conceals the full danger from Feyre while continuing to search for a way to save her.

When Nesta reveals the concealed danger to Feyre during an argument, Rhysand orders Cassian to remove Nesta from Velaris before he kills her. He soon recognizes that he overreacted, apologizes for the threat and for driving Cassian away, and asks them both to return.

Because of Rhysand's bargain to die with Feyre, he cannot risk his life without also endangering Feyre and their unborn child. The shared vow restricts his ability to intervene personally when Nesta is taken into the Blood Rite and Eris disappears.

Nesta's intervention during Feyre's fatal labor transforms Rhysand's relationship with her. After Nesta saves Feyre, Nyx, and therefore Rhys himself, he kneels before her, kisses her hands, and thanks her.

In the weeks after Nyx's birth, Rhysand closely accompanies Feyre and their son and directs his gratitude toward Nesta through an excess of mating gifts. When she orders him to stop, he pours that generosity into her mating ceremony and gives her the House of Wind as a final present before the wedding.

Rhysand can see through or forcibly break glamour, vanish by stepping through the world, and use invasive mental power. At Tamlin's manor he immobilizes Feyre, scrapes at her mind, and reads or exposes intimate thoughts.

Even with Amarantha limiting the High Lords' power, Rhysand can hold and threaten another person's mind without visible strain. When ordered to restrain Lucien mentally, he does so without even taking his hands from his pockets.

Rhysand says Amarantha took most of his power, but he retains dangerous remnants. He can brush Feyre's mind, clean a room and a person with magic, fill a bucket with lentils, open a locked door, compel guards to obey lethal orders, and partially shape-shift.

In the throne room, Rhysand's mental power can kill with extreme speed. He reads a captured Summer Court male and destroys the prisoner's brain so quickly that Amarantha complains he killed instead of merely shattering the mind.

Rhysand can work through the bargain mark on Feyre's arm. He uses it to send pain, withhold pain, speak into her mind, and force her body to move when she cannot do so on her own.

The bargain works as a bridge between Rhysand's mind and Feyre's, with mental shields or doors at either end. His innate gifts also let him breach many minds without that bridge, unless the target is unusually strong or trained.

Rhysand can winnow, fly by wing, and create pocket-realms, though he says the pocket-realms have no air. He teaches Feyre the mechanics of winnowing and uses careful training sites to limit detection and casualties while she tests inherited powers.

As a daemati, Rhysand can walk minds, shield his own thoughts, sense refined mental intrusion, and redirect other people's suspicions. He warns that daemati should never become comfortable with violating minds, even while using those skills for war work and covert operations.

Rhysand's power can sustain citywide protection at great personal cost. He maintains Velaris's shield from afar, spent fifty years preserving the city's secrecy under Amarantha, and risks instability if he goes too long without releasing or draining his power.

Beyond being a High Lord, Rhysand is a trained Illyrian fighter. His power was too great for Siphons to contain, but he trained in the Illyrian camps and can fight Cassian physically without drawing on the force that could flatten the surrounding mountains.

Rhysand's darkness can comfort or devastate depending on his intent. He wraps Feyre in quiet, star-filled night to soothe her, and during the attack on Velaris his star-flecked power sweeps the Rainbow for hidden Hybern soldiers.

In the ancient War, Rhysand is an experienced battlefield commander who fought alongside human and faerie resistance forces. Even after exhausting most of his magic, he can continue fighting with sword, shield, physical strength, and Illyrian training.

Rhysand conducts personal reconnaissance in hostile foreign territories and uses selective intelligence to manipulate rival powers into checking one another. His wartime planning combines espionage, diplomacy, magical surveillance, and direct military command.

At Adriata, Rhysand can identify and fight through magic that dampens both his own power and Siphon-based abilities. He traces such interference to a false image of the King of Hybern, tests the figure with his daemati power, destroys the illusion, and annihilates the soldiers around the ship once the damper falls.

Rhysand can conceal an entire flying army from sight, sound, and scent long enough to position it for an ambush. He also creates broad battlefield shields, breaks enemy defenses, and coordinates layered magical deceptions while conserving strength for greater threats.

At full battlefield force, Rhysand can destroy a large section of an army in a single strike and shield allied forces against the Cauldron's power. Both feats consume enormous reserves and leave him visibly strained.

With techniques learned from Helion, Rhysand can maintain a shield around another person that blocks physical contact and completely conceals scent. He uses Feyre's shield as practice while working toward defenses he considers impenetrable.

Rhysand's daemati power cannot breach every protected mind. During Nesta's scrying, her mental doors close behind a defense that his magic cannot break.

From Helion, Rhysand learns how to place a complex shield over the Prison. The defense combines magic and spellwork and must be carefully unwound before outsiders can pass through the Prison's gates.

Rhysand uses the Veritas, an ancient truth-orb known to humans, as proof of Velaris for the mortal queens. He risks revealing the hidden city through it because he believes no lesser proof will persuade them to act.

Rhysand's mother's ring is a star-sapphire heirloom that she hid with the Weaver until he was ready for it. After Feyre retrieves it during the Weaver test, Rhys gives it to her while explaining its family history.

Rhysand's family maintains a hidden treasury above the House of Wind's library. By Night Court law and tradition its wealth and crowns also belong to Feyre, and he invites her to select the crown through which she wants to represent their court.

The gowns Rhysand has given Feyre were made centuries earlier by his mother as a trousseau for his future bride. He also buys a ruined riverfront estate and gives Feyre the freedom to design their future home there, including space for a possible nursery.

Tamlin and Lucien attribute the severed head left in Spring's garden to the High Lord of the Night Court. In their account, the display is the kind of cruel amusement and warning he would enjoy.

Feyre's false name for herself reaches Amarantha through Rhysand and leads to Clare Beddor's capture. Amarantha explicitly thanks Feyre for giving Rhysand Clare's name instead of her own.

When Amarantha summons Rhysand to identify Feyre, he refuses to expose her and says humans all look alike to him. Feyre is convinced he is lying deliberately, and his deflection keeps her identity from being confirmed in that moment.

During Feyre's first trial, Rhysand explains her strategy to the watching court. He identifies the creature as the Middengard and states that it relies on scent, so Feyre's mud covering has made her effectively invisible to it.

Later, Rhysand admits that Amarantha ordered him to put the severed head in the Spring Court garden. The admission changes the act from a simple Night Court provocation into work he performed under Amarantha's command.

Rhysand openly turns on Amarantha when Feyre is being murdered. He takes Feyre's bloody ash dagger, lunges for Amarantha's throat, attacks again with taloned hands, and is repeatedly overpowered while Amarantha identifies the assault as part of a plan he had been making.

After Feyre dies, Rhysand joins the other High Lords in bestowing power on her body. He gives his own seed of light and says the gift makes them even.

Rhysand crashes Feyre and Tamlin's wedding in thunder and darkness, freezes Tamlin, Lucien, and the sentries, and invokes the bargain before Feyre has to refuse the ceremony aloud. He makes clear that he knew through the bond that she was about to say no.

After Tamlin imprisons Feyre inside the Spring manor, Rhysand's side breaks the house-shield and removes her through darkness. The rescue shifts their bargain from scheduled visits into open refuge at the Night Court.

Rhysand explains how he kept Velaris hidden during Amarantha's rule. He used what power remained to erase the city and his true Inner Circle from dangerous minds, hide the city from approach, and accept Amarantha's control so she would not look too closely at what he protected.

To test whether she can track objects bearing his magic, Rhysand sends Feyre into the Weaver's cottage to retrieve his mother's ring. Her success proves useful for a later search he has in mind, though the method is brutal enough that Cassian openly calls him out for it.

Rhysand helps execute the theft of the Book of Breathings from the Summer Court by transporting Feyre and Amren to the tidal ruin and keeping watch from the air. The theft succeeds but triggers alarms, costs him the alliance he wanted with Tarquin, and leaves him prepared to bear a long feud if that is the price of resisting Hybern.

In the Court of Nightmares, Rhysand returns to let Azriel steal the Veritas from Keir. He assumes the feared High Lord persona in full, uses Feyre's staged role beside him to distract Keir, and enforces a public apology when Keir insults her.

Rhysand risks Velaris's secrecy by showing it to the mortal queens through the Veritas. The queens still refuse openly, but one golden queen secretly gives him the second half of the Book of Breathings because she believes his plea.

During Hybern's attack on Velaris, Rhysand is away returning the Veritas and reaches Feyre mind to mind only after the assault begins. He returns with enough power to sweep the Rainbow for hidden attackers, names Feyre Defender of the Rainbow, and spends the night helping survivors while rebuilding the city's wards.

In Hybern, Rhysand is trapped by the king's magic-breaking spell while the mission to nullify the Cauldron collapses. He cannot winnow or use raw power, must protect Feyre and the wounded Azriel under coercion, and is forced to watch loved ones harmed while resistance would worsen the danger.

Rhysand plays along when Feyre pretends he controlled and violated her so she can return to Tamlin and undermine Hybern's alliance from within. The king's apparent severing of their bargain bond leaves him physically wrecked, but once he escapes with his court he recognizes the faint surviving mating bond and chooses war planning over an impulsive rescue.

Jurian reveals that during the ancient War, Rhysand knowingly marched his legion into a trap to rescue Miryam for the sake of Jurian, Drakon, and their shared cause. The legion was captured and tortured, but Jurian remembers Rhysand as the most decent of their wartime leaders and regards his wicked public image as deliberate camouflage.

Rhysand secures Keir's Darkbringer legion by bargaining with Keir and Eris, accepting tightly controlled future access to Velaris in exchange for military support. Before conceding access, he arranges civic resistance and restrictions intended to prevent the Court of Nightmares from freely exploiting the city.

Across the battlefield, Rhysand personally transports Illyrian legions to relieve the siege of Adriata and hunts the source of a power damper. He exposes a false King of Hybern aboard a warship, destroys the spell sustaining it, and helps secure the city before offering Summer continued military protection.

At the High Lords' summit, Rhysand abandons part of the Night Court's old disguise by appearing with his Illyrian wings visible and presenting Feyre openly as High Lady. He discloses painful truths about his captivity under Amarantha, argues for negotiation rather than mental coercion, and commits his court and armies to the alliance against Hybern.

For a night, Rhysand spends his time evacuating human families from Hybern's advance, soothing frightened minds and winnowing civilians to safety. The effort drains him until he can barely return to camp and loses consciousness as soon as he reaches bed.

Rhysand secretly bargains with the Weaver for her help in the final battle, offering release from her containment spell as payment. The agreement leaves a curling tattoo behind his ear and adds the ancient creature to the Night Court's battlefield plans.

During the final battle, Rhysand directs the allied army, deploying hidden monsters, dividing Hybern's host with his own power, shielding his forces from the Cauldron, and integrating unexpected reinforcements from Autumn, Spring, Jurian, Drakon, Miryam, and Vassa. As the battle approaches collapse, he prepares Feyre to escape without him and permits Cassian and Nesta's desperate bait plan despite believing Cassian will not survive it.

After the Cauldron breaks, Rhysand identifies how Feyre can repair it and pours all his remaining power through her while she acts as the conduit. He continues until the final fracture seals and dies when the Cauldron is made whole.

Feyre and the other High Lords each give Rhysand a kernel of life, reviving him as the High Lords once revived Feyre. He returns with his power intact and says he also reached Amren in death, offering her a return.

Rhysand visits the collapsing Spring Court to investigate its unguarded border with the human lands and offers Night Court warriors to patrol it. When Tamlin refuses, Rhys unleashes years of anger over Tamlin's treatment of Feyre and leaves disturbed by evidence that Tamlin has abandoned even his own defenses.

Despite Tamlin's earlier refusal of Night Court assistance, Rhysand arranges for Tarquin to send Summer Court soldiers to protect Spring's border. He does not forgive Tamlin for his family's role in the murders of Rhysand's mother and sister, but he prepares food for the isolated High Lord and orders him to eat rather than leaving him to destroy himself.

Rhysand personally inspects the resumed training of Illyrian girls at Windhaven after resistance in the camps threatens the reform. He offers to oversee archery lessons for any girl who chooses them and supports Cassian's effort to secure gradual progress without taking the decision over the chief agitator out of Cassian's hands.

When Nesta has accidentally forged three magical weapons, Rhysand confirms it and personally tests their extraordinary power. Although Amren urges him to use the blades to pursue the title of High King, he refuses.

When Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie are abducted into the Blood Rite, Rhysand rapidly confirms what happened but refuses to winnow Cassian inside. The Rite's laws would require the execution of both rescuer and rescued, binding even the High Lord and leaving him unable to extract the women without condemning them.

During Feyre's catastrophic labor, Rhysand pours healing power into her, enters her mind to take away her pain, and has to be restrained when both Feyre and the newborn Nyx appear to be dying. Nesta uses the Dread Trove to save Feyre, Nyx, and Rhys as well because of his death-bargain with Feyre.