Ianthe purred, her voice drawing closer. “I still can’t use most of my hand.”

I didn’t reply. Winnow—I should winnow.

Black blood dribbled out of the Suriel’s neck, that arrow tip vulgar as it jutted up from its thick skin. I couldn’t heal it—not with those ash arrows still in its flesh. Not until they were out.

“I’d heard from Tamlin how you captured this one,” Ianthe went on, coming closer and closer. “So I adapted your methods. And it would not tell me anything. But since you have made contact so many times, the robe I gave it …” I could hear the smile in her voice. “A simple tracking spell, a gift from the king. To be triggered in your presence. If you should come calling again.”

Run, the Suriel mouthed once more, blood dribbling past its withered lips.

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That was pain in its eyes. Real pain, as mortal as any creature.

And if Ianthe took it alive to Hybern … The Suriel knew it was a possibility. It had begged me for freedom once … yet it was willing to be taken. For me to run.

Its milky eyes narrowed—in pain and understanding. Yes, it seemed to say. Go.

“The king built shields in my mind,” Ianthe prattled on, “to keep you from harming me again when I found you.”

I peered around the tree to spy her standing at the edge of the clearing, frowning at the Suriel. She wore her pale robes, that blue stone crowning her hood. Only two guards with her. Even after all this time … She still underestimated me.

I ducked back around before she could spot me. Met the Suriel’s stare one more time.

And I let it read every one of the emotions that solidified in me with absolute clarity.

The Suriel began to shake its head. Or tried to.

But I gave it a smile of farewell. And stepped into the clearing.

“I should have slit your throat that night in the tent,” I said to the priestess.

One of the guards shot an arrow at me.

I blocked it with a wall of hard air that instantly buckled. Drained

—mostly drained. And if it took another hit from an ash arrow …

Ianthe’s face tightened. “You’ll find you want to reconsider how you speak to me. I’ll be your best advocate in Hybern.”

“I suppose you’ll have to catch me first,” I said coolly—and ran.

I could have sworn that ancient forest moved to make room for me.

Could have sworn it, too, read my final thoughts to the Suriel, and cleared the way.

But not for them.

I hurled every scrap of strength into my legs, into keeping upright, as I sprinted through the trees, leaping over rocks and streams, dodging moss-coated boulders.

Yet those guards, yet Ianthe, managed to keep close behind, even as they swore at the snapping trunks that seemed to shift into their way, the rocks that went loose beneath their feet. I only had to outrun them for so long.

Only for a few miles. Draw them away from the Suriel, buy it time to flee.

And make sure they paid for what they had done. All of it.

I opened my senses, letting them lead the way. The forest did the rest.

Perhaps she was waiting for me. Perhaps she had ordered the woods to open a path.

The Hybern guards gained on me. My feet flew beneath me, swift as a deer.

I began to recognize the trees, the rocks. There, I had stood with Rhys—there, I had flirted with him. There, he had lounged atop a branch while waiting for me.

The air behind me parted—an arrow.

I veered left, nearly slamming into a tree. The arrow went wide.

The light shifted ahead—brighter. The clearing.

I let out a whimper of relief that I made sure they heard.

I broke from the tree line in a leap, knees popping as I flew over the stones leading to that hair-thatched cottage.

Help me,” I breathed, making sure they heard that, too.

The wooden door was already half-open. The world slowed and cleared with each step, each heartbeat, as I hurtled over the threshold.

And into the Weaver’s cottage.

CHAPTER

60

I gripped the door handle as I passed the threshold, digging in my heels and throwing every scrap of strength into my arms to keep that door from shutting. From locking me in.

Invisible hands shoved against it, but I gritted my teeth and braced a foot against the wall, iron biting into my hands.

The room behind me was dark. “Thief,” intoned a lovely voice in the blackness.

“You do know,” Ianthe tittered from outside the cottage, her steps slowing into a walk, “that we’ll have to kill whoever is inside there with you. Selfish of you, Feyre.”

I panted, holding the door open, making sure they couldn’t see me on the other side.

“You have seen my twin,” the Weaver hissed softly—with a hint of wonder. “I smell him on you.”

Outside, Ianthe and the guard grew closer. Closer and closer.

Somewhere deep in the room, I felt her move. Felt her stand.

And take a step toward me.

“What are you,” the Weaver breathed.

“Feyre, you can be quite tedious,” Ianthe said. Right outside. I could barely make out her pale robes through the crack between the door and threshold. “Do you think you can ambush us in there? I saw your shield. You’re drained. And I do not think your glowing trick will help.”

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The Weaver’s dress rustled as she crept closer in the gloom.

“Who did you bring, little wolf? Who did you bring to me?”

Ianthe and her two guards stepped over the threshold. Then another step. Past the open door. They didn’t see me in the shadows behind it.

“Dinner,” I said to the Weaver, whirling around the door—to its outside face. And let go of the handle.

Just as the door slammed shut hard enough to rattle the cottage, I saw the ball of faelight that Ianthe lifted to illuminate the room.

Saw the horrible face of the Weaver, that mouth of stumped teeth opening wide with delight and unholy hunger. A death-god of old—starved for life. With a beautiful priestess before her.

I was already hurtling for the trees when the guards and Ianthe began screaming.

Their unending screams followed me for half a mile. By the time I reached the spot where I’d seen the Suriel fall, they’d faded.

Sprawled out, the Suriel’s bony chest heaved unevenly, its breaths few and far between.

Dying.

I slid to my knees before it, sinking into the bloody moss. “Let me help you. I can heal you.”

I’d do it the same way I’d helped Rhysand. Remove those arrows—and offer it my blood.

I reached for the first one, but a dry, bony hand settled on my wrist. “Your magic …,” it rasped, “is spent. Do not … waste it.”

“I can save you.”

It only gripped my wrist. “I am already gone.”

“What—what can I do?” The words turned thin—brittle.

“Stay …,” it breathed. “Stay … until the end.”

I took its hand in mine. “I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say.

I had done this—I had brought it here.

“I knew,” it gasped, sensing my shift in thoughts. “The tracking

… I knew of it.”

“Then why come at all?”

“You … were kind. You … fought your fear. You were … kind,” it said again.

I began crying.

“And you were kind to me,” I said, not brushing away the tears that fell onto its bloodied, tattered robe. “Thank you—for helping me. When no one else would.”

A small smile on that lipless mouth. “Feyre Archeron.” A labored breath. “I told you—to stay with the High Lord. And you did.”

Its warning to me that first time we’d met. “You—you meant Rhys.” All this time. All this time—

“Stay with him … and live to see everything righted.”

“Yes. I did—and it was.”

“No—not yet. Stay with him.”

“I will.” I always would.

Its chest rose—then fell.

“I don’t even know your name,” I whispered. The Suriel—it was a title, a name for its kind.

That small smile again. “Does it matter, Cursebreaker?”

“Yes.”

Its eyes dimmed, but it did not tell me. It only said, “You should go now. Worse things—worse things are coming. The blood …

draws them.”

I squeezed its bony hand, the leathery skin growing colder. “I can stay a while longer.”

I had killed enough animals to know when a body neared death. Soon, now—it would be a matter of breaths.

“Feyre Archeron,” the Suriel said again, gazing at the leafy canopy, the sky peeking through it. A painful inhale. “A request.”

I leaned close. “Anything.”

Another rattling breath. “Leave this world … a better place than how you found it.”

And as its chest rose and stopped altogether, as its breath escaped in one last sigh, I understood why the Suriel had come to help me, again and again. Not just for kindness … but because it was a dreamer.

And it was the heart of a dreamer that had ceased beating inside that monstrous chest.

Its sudden silence echoed into my own.

I laid my head on its chest, on that now-silent vault of bone, and wept.

I wept and wept, until there was a strong hand at my shoulder.

I didn’t know the scent, the feel of that hand. But I knew the voice as Helion said softly to me, “Come, Feyre. It is not safe here. Come.”

I lifted my head. Helion was there, features grim, his brown skin ashen.

“I can’t leave it here like this,” I said, refusing to let go of its hand. I didn’t care how Helion had found me. Why he’d found me.

He looked to the fallen creature, mouth tightening. “I’ll take care of it.”

Burn it—with the power of the sun.

I let him help me to my feet. Let him extend a hand toward that body—

“Wait.”

Helion obeyed.

“Give me your cloak. Please.”

Brows narrowing, Helion unfastened the rich crimson cloak pinned at each shoulder.

I didn’t bother to explain as I covered the Suriel’s body with the fine fabric. Far finer than the hateful rags Ianthe had given it. I tucked the High Lord’s cloak gently around its broad shoulders, its bony arms.

“Thank you,” I said one last time to the Suriel, and stepped away.

Helion’s flame was a pure, blinding white.

It burned the Suriel into ashes within a heartbeat.

“Come,” Helion said again, extending a hand. “Let’s get you to the camp.”

It was the kindness in his voice that cracked my chest. But I took Helion’s hand.

As warm light whisked us away, I could have sworn that the pile of ashes was stirred by a phantom wind.

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CHAPTER

61

Helion winnowed me into the camp. Right into Rhys’s war-tent.

My mate was pale. Blood-splattered and filthy, from his skin to his armor to his hair.

I opened my mouth—to ask how the battle had gone, to say what had happened, I don’t know.

But Rhys just reached for me, folding me into his chest.

And at the smell and warmth and solidity of him … I began weeping again.

I didn’t know who was in the tent. Who had survived the battle.

But they all left.

Left, while my mate held me, rocking me gently, as I cried and cried.

He only told me what had happened when my tears had quieted.

When he’d washed the Suriel’s black blood from my hands, my face.

I was out of the tent a heartbeat later, charging through the mud, dodging exhausted and weary soldiers. Rhys was a step behind me, but said nothing as I shoved through flaps of another tent and took stock of what and who was before me.

Mor and Azriel were standing before the cot, monitoring every move the healer sitting beside it made.

As she held her glowing hands over Cassian.

I understood then—the quiet Cassian had once mentioned to me.

It was now in my head as I looked at his muddy, pained face—

pained, even in unconsciousness. As I heard his labored, wet breathing.

As I beheld the slice curving up from his navel to the bottom of his sternum. The split flesh. The blood—mostly just a trickle.

I swayed—only for Rhys to grip me beneath the elbows.

The healer didn’t turn to look at me as her brow bunched in concentration, hands flaring with white light. Beneath them—

slowly, the lips of the wound reached toward each other.

If it was this bad now—

“How,” I rasped. Rhys had told me three things a moment ago: We’d won—barely. Tarquin had again decided what to do with any survivors. And Cassian had been gravely injured.

“Where were you,” was all Mor said to me. She was soaked, bloody, and coated in mud. Azriel was, too. No sign of injuries beyond minor cuts, mercifully.

I shook my head. I’d let Rhys into my mind while he held me.

Showed him everything—explained Ianthe and the Suriel and the Weaver. What it had told me. Rhys’s eyes had gone distant for a moment, and I knew Amren was on her way, the Book in tow. To help Nesta track that Cauldron—or try to. He could explain to Mor.

He’d only known I was gone after the battle stopped—when he realized Mor had been fighting. And that I was not at the camp anymore. He’d just reached Elain’s tent when Helion sent word he’d found me. Using whatever gift he possessed that allowed him to sense such things. And was bringing me back. Vague, brief details.

“Is he—is he going to—” I couldn’t finish the rest. Words had become as foreign and hard to reach as the stars.

“No,” the healer said without looking at me. “He’ll be sore for a few days, though.”

Indeed, she’d gotten either side of the wound to touch—to now start weaving together.

Bile surged up my throat at the sight of that raw flesh—

“How,” I asked again.

“He wouldn’t wait for us,” Mor said flatly. “He kept charging—

trying to re-form the line. One of their commanders engaged him.

He wouldn’t turn away. By the time Az got there, he was down.”

Azriel’s face was stone-cold, even as his hazel eyes fixed unrelentingly upon that knitting wound.

Mor said again, “Where did you go?”

“If you’re about to fight,” the healer said sharply, “take it outside.

My patient doesn’t need to hear this.”

None of us moved.

Rhys brushed a hand down my arm. “You are, as always, free to go wherever and whenever you wish. But what I think Mor is saying is … try to leave a note the next time.”

The words were casual, but that was panic in his eyes. Not—

not the controlling fear Tamlin had once succumbed to, but …

genuine terror of not knowing where I was, if I needed help. Just as I would want to know where he was, if he needed help, if he vanished when our enemies surrounded us. “I’m sorry,” I said. To him, to the others.

Mor didn’t so much as look at me.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Rhys replied, hand sliding to cup my cheek. “You decided to take things into your own hands, and got us valuable information in the process. But …” His thumb stroked over my cheekbone. “We have been lucky,” he breathed.

“Keeping a step ahead—keeping out of Hybern’s claws. Even if today … today wasn’t so fortunate on the battlefield. But the cynic in me wonders if our luck is about to expire. And I would rather it not end with you.”

They all had to think me young and reckless.

No, Rhys said through the bond, and I realized I’d left my shields open. Believe me, if you knew half of the shit Cassian and Mor have pulled, you’d get why we don’t. I just … Leave a note.

Or tell me the next time.

Would you have let me go if I had?

I do not let you do anything. He tilted my face up, Mor and Azriel looking away. You are your own person, you make your own choices. But we are mates—I am yours, and you are mine.

We do not let each other do things, as if we dictate the movements of each other. But … I might have insisted I go with you. More for my own mental well-being, just to know you were safe.

You were occupied.

A slash of a smile. If you were hell-bent on going into the Middle, I would have unoccupied myself from battle.

I waited for him to chide me about not waiting until they were done, about all of it, but … he angled his head. “I wonder if the Weaver forgives you now,” he mused aloud.

Even the healer seemed to start at the name—the words.

A shiver ran down my spine. “I don’t want to know.”

Rhys let out a low laugh. “Then let’s never find out.”

But the amusement faded as he again surveyed Cassian. The wound that was now sealed over.

The Suriel wasn’t your fault.

I loosed a breath as Cassian’s eyelids began to shift and flutter.

I know.

I’d already added its death to my ever-growing list of things I’d soon make Hybern pay for.

Long minutes passed, and we stood in silence. I did not ask where Nesta was. Mor barely acknowledged me. And Rhys …

He perched on the foot of the cot as Cassian’s eyes at last opened, and the general let out a groan of pain.

“That’s what you get,” the healer chided, gathering her supplies, “for stepping in front of a sword.” She frowned at him.

“Rest tonight and tomorrow. I know better than to insist on a third day after that, but try not to leap in front of blades anytime soon.”

Cassian just blinked rather dazedly at her before she bowed to Rhys and me and left.

“How bad,” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“How bad was your injury,” Rhys said mildly, “or how badly did we have our asses kicked?”

Cassian blinked again. Slowly. As if whatever sedative he’d been given still held sway.

“To answer the second question,” Rhys went on, Mor and Azriel backing away a step or two as something sharpened in my mate’s voice, “we managed. Keir took heavy hits, but … we won. Barely.

To answer the first …” Rhys bared his teeth. “Don’t you ever pull that kind of shit again.”

The glaze wore off Cassian’s eyes as he heard the challenge, the anger, and tried to sit up. He hissed, scowling down at the red, angry slice down his chest.

“Your guts were hanging out, you stupid prick,” Rhys snapped.

“Az held them in for you.”

Indeed, the shadowsinger’s hands were caked in blood—

Cassian’s blood. And his face … cold with—anger.

“I’m a soldier,” Cassian said flatly. “It’s part of the job.”

“I gave you an order to wait,” Rhys growled. “You ignored it.”

I glanced to Mor, to Azriel—a silent question of whether we should remain. They were too busy watching Rhys and Cassian to notice.

“The line was breaking,” Cassian retorted. “Your order was bullshit.”

Rhys braced his hands on either side of Cassian’s legs and snarled in his face, “I am your High Lord. You don’t get to disregard orders you don’t like.”

Cassian sat up this time, swearing at the pain lingering in his body. “Don’t you pull rank because you’re pissed off—”

“You and your damned theatrics on the battlefield nearly got you killed.” And even as Rhys spat the words—that was panic, again, in his eyes. His voice. “I’m not pissed. I’m furious.”

“So you’re allowed to be mad about our choices to protect you

—and we’re not allowed to be furious with you for your self-sacrificing bullshit?”

Rhys just stared at him. Cassian stared right back.

“You could have died,” was all Rhys said, his voice raw.

“So could you.”

Another beat of silence—and in its wake, the anger shifted.

Rhys said quietly, “Even after Hybern … I can’t stomach it.”

Seeing him hurt. Any of us hurt.

And the way Rhys spoke, the way Cassian leaned forward, wincing again, and gripped Rhys’s shoulder …

I strode out of the tent. Left them to talk. Azriel and Mor followed behind me.

I squinted at the watery light—the very last before true dark.

When my vision adjusted … Nesta stood by the nearest tent, an empty water bucket between her feet. Her hair a damp mess atop her mud-flecked head. Watching us emerge, grim-faced—

“He’s fine. Healed and awake,” I said quickly.

Nesta’s shoulders sagged a bit.

She’d saved me the trouble of hunting her down to ask her about tracking the Cauldron. Better to do it now, with some privacy. Especially before Amren arrived.

But Mor said coldly, “Shouldn’t you be refilling that bucket?”

Nesta went stiff. Sized up Mor. But Mor didn’t flinch from that look.

After a moment, Nesta picked up her bucket, mud caked up to her shins, and continued on, steps squelching.

I turned, finding Azriel striding for the commanders’ tent, but Mor—

Livid. She was absolutely livid as she faced me. “She didn’t bother to tell anyone that you left.”

Hence the anger. “Nesta is many things, but she’s certainly loyal.”

Mor didn’t smile. Not as she said, “You lied.”

She stormed for her own tent, and with that comment … I had no choice but to follow her in.

The space was mostly occupied with her bed and a small desk littered with weapons and maps. “I didn’t lie,” I said, wincing. “I just

… didn’t tell you what I planned to do.”

She gaped at me. “You nudged me to leave you, insisting you would be safe at the camp.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Sorry? Sorry? ” She splayed her arms. Bits of mud flew off.

I didn’t know what to do with my own—how to even look her in the eye. I’d seen her mad before, but never … never at me. I’d never had a friend to quarrel with—who cared enough.

“I know everything you’re about to say, every excuse for why I couldn’t go with you,” Mor snapped. “But none of it excuses you for lying to me. If you’d explained, I would have let you go—if you’d trusted me, I would have let you go. Or maybe talked you out of an idiotic idea that nearly got you killed. They are hunting for you. They want to get their hands on you and use you. Hurt you. You’ve only seen a taste of what Hybern can do, what they delight in. And to break you to his will, the king will do anything.”

I didn’t know what to say other than, “We needed this information.”

“Of course we did. But do you know what it felt like to look Rhys in the eye and tell him I had no idea where you were? To realize—

for myself—that you had vanished, and likely duped me into enabling it?” She scrubbed at her filthy face, smearing the mud and gore further. “I thought you were smarter than that. Better than that sort of thing.”

The words sent a line of fire searing across my vision, burning down my spine. “I’m not going to listen to this.”

I turned to leave, but Mor was already there, gripping my arm.

“Oh, yes, you are. Rhys might be all smiles and forgiveness, but you still have us to answer to. You are my High Lady. Do you understand what it means when you imply you don’t trust us to help you? To respect your wishes if you want to do something alone? When you lie to us?”

“You want to talk about lying?” I didn’t even know what came out of my mouth. I wished I’d killed Ianthe myself, if only to get rid of the rage that writhed along my bones. “How about the fact that you lie to yourself and all of us every single day?”

She went still, but didn’t loosen her hold on my arm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why haven’t you ever made a move for Azriel, Mor? Why did you invite Helion to your bed? You clearly found no pleasure in it

—I saw the way you looked the next day. So before you accuse me of being a liar, I’d suggest you look long and hard at yourself

—”

“That’s enough.”

“Is it? Don’t like someone pushing you about it? About your choices? Well, neither do I.”

Mor dropped my arm. “Get out.”

“Fine.”

I didn’t glance back as I left. I wondered if she could hear my thunderous heartbeat with every storming step I took through the muddy camp.

Amren found me within twenty steps, a wrapped bundle in her arms. “Every time you lot leave me at home, someone manages to get gutted.”

CHAPTER

62

I couldn’t bring myself to smile at Amren. I could barely keep my chin high.

She peered behind me, as if she could see the path I’d taken from Mor’s tent, smell the fight on me. “Be careful,” Amren warned as I fell into step beside her, heading for our tent again, “of how you push her. There are some truths that even Morrigan has not herself faced.”

The hot anger was swiftly slipping into something cold and queasy and heavy.

“We all fight from time to time, girl,” Amren said. “Both of you should cool your heels. Talk tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

Amren shot me a sharp look, her hair swinging with the motion, but we’d reached my tent.

Rhys and Azriel were holding Cassian between them as they gently set him into a chair at the paper-strewn desk. The general’s face was still grayish, but someone had found a shirt for him—and washed off the blood. From the way Cassian sagged in that seat … He must have insisted he come. And from the way Rhys lightly mussed his hair as he strode to the other side of the desk … That wound, too, had been patched up.

Rhys lifted a brow as I entered, still stomping a bit. I shook my head. I’ll tell you later.

A caress of claws down my innermost barrier—a comforting touch.

Amren laid the Book onto the desk with a thud that echoed in the earth beneath our feet.

“The second and penultimate pages,” I said, trying not to flinch at the power of the Book slithering through the tent. “The Suriel claimed the key you were looking for is there. To nullify the Cauldron’s power.”

I assumed Rhys had told Amren what had occurred—and assumed that he’d told someone to fetch Nesta, since she pushed through the heavy flaps a moment later.

“Did you bring them?” Rhys asked Amren as Nesta silently approached the table.

Still coated in mud up to her shins, my sister paused on the other side—away from where Cassian now sat. Looked him over.

Her face revealed nothing, yet her hands … I could have sworn a faint tremor rippled through her fingers before she balled them into fists and faced Amren. Cassian watched her for a moment longer before turning his head toward Amren as well. How long had Nesta stood atop that hill, watching the battle? Had she seen him fall?

Amren reached into the pocket of her pewter cloak and chucked a black velvet bag onto the desk. It clacked and thunked as it hit the wood. “Bones and stones.”

Nesta only angled her head at the sight of the bag.

Your sister came immediately when I explained what we needed, Rhys said. I think seeing Cassian hurt convinced her not to pick a fight today.

Or convinced my sister to pick a fight with someone else entirely.

Nesta lifted the bag. “So, I scatter these like some backstreet charlatan and it’ll find the Cauldron?”

Amren let out a low laugh. “Something like that.”

Arcs of mud lay beneath Nesta’s nails. She didn’t seem to notice as she untied the small pouch and dumped out its contents.

Three stones, four bones. The latter were brown and gleamed with age; the former were white as the moon and smooth as glass, each marked with a thin, reedy letter I did not recognize.

“Three stones for the faces of the Mother,” Amren said upon seeing Nesta’s raised brows. “Four bones … for whatever reason the charlatans came up with that I can’t be bothered to remember.”

Nesta snorted. Rhys echoed the sentiment. My sister said, “So what—I just shake them around in my hands and chuck them?

How am I to make sense of any of it?”

“We can figure it out,” Cassian said, his voice rough and weary.

“But start with holding them in your hands and thinking—about the Cauldron.”

“Don’t just think about it,” Amren corrected. “You must cast your mind toward it. Find the bond that links you.”

Even I paused at that. And Nesta, stones and bones now in hand … She made no move to close her eyes. “I—am I to …

touch it?”

“No,” Amren warned. “Just come close. Find it, but do not interact.”

Nesta still didn’t move. She could not use the bathtub, she’d told me. Because the memories it dragged up—

Cassian said to her, “Nothing can harm you here.” He sucked in a breath, groaning softly, and rose to his feet. Azriel tried to stop him, but Cassian brushed him off and strode for my sister’s side.

He braced a hand on the desk when he at last stopped. “Nothing can harm you,” he repeated.

Nesta was still looking at him when she finally shut her eyes. I shifted, and the angle allowed me to see what I hadn’t detected before.

Nesta stood before the map, a fist of bones and stones clenched over it. Cassian remained at her side—his other hand on her lower back.

And I marveled at the touch she allowed—marveled at it as much as I did the mud-splattered hand she held out. The

concentration that settled over her face.

Her eyes shifted beneath their lids, as if scanning the world. “I don’t see anything.”

“Go deeper,” Amren urged. “Find that tether between you.”

She stiffened, but Cassian stepped closer, and she settled again.

A minute went by. Then another.

A muscle twitched on Nesta’s brow. Her hand bobbed.

Her breath then came fast and hard, her lips curling back as she panted through her teeth.

“Nesta,” Cassian warned.

“Quiet,” Amren snapped.

A small noise came out of her—one of terror.

“Where is it, girl,” Amren coaxed. “Open your hand. Let us see.”

Nesta’s fingers only clutched tighter, the whites of her knuckles as stark as the stones held within them.

Too deep—whatever she had done—

I lunged for her. Not physically, but with my mind.

If Elain’s mental gates were those of a sleeping garden, Nesta’s

… They belonged to an ancient fortress, sharp and brutal. The sort I imagined they once impaled people upon.

But they were open wide. And inside …

Dark.

Dark like I had never known, even with Rhysand.

Nesta.

I took a step into her mind.

The images slammed into me.

One after one after one, I saw them.

The army that stretched into the horizon. The weapons, the hate, the sheer size.

I saw the king standing over a map in a war-tent, flanked by Jurian and several commanders, the Cauldron squatting in the center of the room behind them.

And there was Nesta.

Standing in that tent, watching the king, the Cauldron.

Frozen in place.

With undiluted fear.

“Nesta.”

She did not seem to hear me as she stared at them.

I reached for her hand. “You found it. I see—I see where it is.”

Nesta’s face was bloodless. But she at last dragged her attention to me. “Feyre.”

Surprise lit her terror-wide eyes.

“Let’s go back,” I said.

She nodded, and we turned. But we felt it—we both did.

Not the king or the commanders plotting with him. Not Jurian as he played his deadly game of deception. But the Cauldron. As if some great sleeping beast opened an eye.

The Cauldron seemed to sense us watching. Sense us there.

I felt it stir—like it would lunge for Nesta. I grabbed my sister and ran.

“Open your fist,” I ordered her as we sprinted for the iron gates to her mind. “Open it now.”

She only panted, and that monstrous force swelled behind us, a black wave rising up.

“Open it now, or it will get in here. Open it now, Nesta!”

I heard the words as I threw myself out of her mind—heard them because I’d been shouting in that tent.

With a gasp, Nesta’s fingers splayed wide, scattering stones and bones over the map.

Cassian caught her with an arm around the waist as she swayed. He hissed in pain at the movement. “What the hell—”

“Look,” Amren breathed.

There was no throw that could have done it—save for one blessed by magic.

The stones and bones formed a perfect, tight circle around a spot on the map.

Nesta and I went pale. I had seen the size of that army—we both had. While Hybern had been driving us northward, letting us chase them in these two battles …

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The king had amassed his host along the western edge of the human territory.

Perhaps no more than a hundred miles from our family’s estate.

Rhys called in Tarquin and Helion to show them what we’d discovered.

Too few. We had too few soldiers, even with three armies here, to take on that host. I’d shown Rhysand what I’d seen—and he’d shown it to the others.

“Kallias will arrive soon,” Helion said, dragging his hands through his onyx hair.

“He’d have to bring forty thousand soldiers,” Cassian said. “I doubt he has half that.”

Rhys was staring and staring at that cluster of stones and bones on the map. I could feel the wrath rippling off him—not just at Hybern, but himself for not thinking Hybern might be deliberately toying with us. Positioning us here.

We’d won the high ground these two battles—Hybern had won the high ground in this war.

He knew what waited in the Middle.

And Hybern had now forced us to gather here—in this spot—so that he and his behemoth army could drive us northward. A clean sweep from the south, eventually pushing us into the Middle or forcing us to break apart to avoid the lethal tangle of trees and denizens.

And if we took the battle to them … We might court death.

None of us were foolish enough to risk building any plans around Jurian, regardless of where his true allegiance lay. Our best chance was in buying time for other allies to arrive. Kallias.

Thesan.

Tamlin had chosen who to back in this war. And even if he’d picked Prythian, he would have been left with the problem of

mustering a Spring Court force after I’d destroyed their faith in him.

And Miryam and Drakon … Not enough time, Rhys said to me.

To hunt for them—find them, and bring back their army. We could return to find Hybern has wiped our own off the map.

But there was the Carver—if I dared risk retrieving his prize. I didn’t mention it, didn’t offer it. Not until I could know for certain—

once I wasn’t about to faint from exhaustion.

“We’ll rest on it,” Tarquin said, blowing out a breath. “Meet at dawn tomorrow. Making a decision after a long day never helped anyone.”

Helion agreed, and saw himself out. It was hard not to stare, not to compare his features to Lucien’s. Their nose was the same

—eerily identical. How had no one ever called him out for it?

I supposed it was the least of my worries. Tarquin frowned at the map one last time and declared, “We’ll find a way to face this.”

Rhys nodded, while Cassian’s mouth quirked to the side. He’d slid back into his chair for the discussion, and now nursed a cup of some healing brew Azriel had fetched for him.

Tarquin turned from the table, just as the tent flaps parted for a pair of broad shoulders—

Varian. He didn’t so much as look at his High Lord, his focus going right to where Amren sat at the head of the table. As if he’d sensed she was here—or someone had reported. And he’d come running.

Amren’s eyes flicked up from the Book as Varian halted. A coy smile curved her red lips.

There was still blood and dirt splattered on Varian’s brown skin, coating his silver armor and close-cropped white hair. He didn’t seem to notice or care as he strode for Amren.

And none of us dared to speak as Varian dropped to his knees before Amren’s chair, took her shocked face in his broad hands, and kissed her soundly.

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63

None of us lasted long after dinner.

Amren and Varian didn’t even bother to join us.

No, she’d just wrapped her legs around his waist, right there in front of us, and he’d stood, lifting her in one swift movement. I wasn’t entirely sure how Varian managed to walk them out of the tent while still kissing her, Amren’s hands dragging through his hair, letting out noises that were unnervingly like purring as they vanished into the camp.

Rhys had let out a low laugh as we all gawked in their wake. “I suppose that’s how Varian decided he’d tell Amren he was feeling rather grateful she ordered us to go to Adriata.”

Tarquin cringed. “We’ll alternate who has to deal with them on holidays.”

Cassian chuckled hoarsely, and looked to Nesta, who remained pale and quiet. What she’d seen, what I’d seen in her mind …

The size of that army …

“Eat or bed?” Cassian had asked Nesta, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he’d meant it as some invitation. I debated telling him he was in no shape.

Nesta only said, “Bed.” And there was certainly no invitation in the exhausted reply.

Rhys and I managed to eat, quietly discussing what we’d seen.

Exhaustion weighted my every breath, and I’d barely finished my plate of roast mutton before I crawled into bed and passed out

atop the blankets. Rhys woke me only to tug off my boots and jacket.

Tomorrow morning. We’d figure out how to deal with everything tomorrow morning. I’d talk to Amren about finally mustering Bryaxis to help us wipe out that army.

Maybe there was something else we weren’t seeing. Some additional shot at salvation beyond that nullifying spell.

My dreams were a tangled garden, thorns snagging on me as I stumbled through them.

I dreamed of the Suriel, bleeding out and smiling. I dreamed of the Weaver’s open mouth ripping into Ianthe while she still screamed. I dreamed of Lord Graysen—so mortal and young— standing at the edge of the camp, beckoning to Elain. Telling her he’d come for her. To come home with him. That he’d found a way to undo what had been done to her—to make her human again.

I dreamed of that Cauldron in the King of Hybern’s war-tent, so dark and slumbering … Awakening as Nesta and I stood there, invisible and unseen.

How it had watched back. Known us.

I could feel it watching me, even then. In my dreams. Feel it extend an ancient, black tendril toward me—

I jolted awake.

Rhys’s naked body was wrapped around mine, his face softened with sleep. In the blackness of the tent, I listened.

Crackling fires outside. The drowsy murmurs of the soldiers on watch. The wind sighing along the canvas tents, snapping at the banners crowning them.

I scanned the dark, listening.

The skin on my arms pebbled.

“Rhys.”

He was instantly awake—sitting upright. “What is it?”

“Something …” I listened so hard my ears strained. “Something is here. Something is wrong.”

He moved, hauling on his pants and knife-belt. I followed suit, still trying to listen, fingers stumbling over the buckles. “I

dreamed,” I whispered. “I dreamed about the Cauldron … that it was watching again.”

Shit.” The word was a hiss of breath.

“I think we opened a door,” I breathed, shoving my feet into my boots. “I think … I think …” I couldn’t finish the sentence as I hurried for the tent flaps, Rhys at my heels. Nesta. I had to find Nesta— Gold-brown hair flashed in the firelight, and she was already there, hurrying for me, still in her nightgown. “You hear it, too,” she panted.

Hear—I couldn’t hear, but just feel

Amren’s small figure darted around a tent, wearing what looked to be Varian’s shirt. It came down to her knees, and its owner was indeed behind her, bare-chested as Rhys was, and wide-eyed.

Amren’s bare feet were splattered in mud and grass. “It came here—its power. I can feel it—slithering around. Looking.”

“The Cauldron,” Varian said, brows narrowing. “But—it’s aware?”

“We pried too deep,” Amren said. “Battle aside, it knows where we are as much as we now know its location.”

Nesta raised a hand. “Listen.”

And I heard it then.

It was a song and invitation, a cluster of notes sung by a voice that was male and female, young and old, haunting and alluring and—

“I can’t hear anything,” Rhys said.

“You were not Made,” Amren snapped. But we were. The three of us …

Again, the Cauldron sang its siren song.

My very bones recoiled. “What does it want?”

I felt it pulling away—felt it sliding off into the night.

Azriel stepped out of a shadow. “What is that,” he hissed.

My brows rose. “You hear it?”

A shake of the head. “No—but the shadows, the wind … They recoil.”

The Cauldron sang again.

Distant—withdrawing.

“I think it’s leaving,” I whispered.

Cassian stumbled and staggered for us a moment later, a hand braced on his chest, Mor on his heels. She did not so much as look at me, nor I her, as Rhys told them. Standing together in the dead of night— The Cauldron sang one final note—then went silent.

The presence, the weight … vanished.

Amren loosed a sigh. “Hybern knows where we are by now.

The Cauldron likely wanted to have a look for itself. After we taunted it.”

I rubbed at my face. “Let’s pray that’s the last we see of it.”

Varian angled his head. “So you three … because you were Made, you can hear it? Sense it?”

“It would appear so,” Amren said, looking inclined to tug him back to wherever they’d been, to finish what they’d no doubt still been in the middle of doing.

But Azriel asked softly, “What about Elain?”

Something cold went through me. Nesta was just staring at Azriel. Staring and staring—

Then she broke into a run.

Her bare feet slid through the mud, splattering me as we charged for our sister’s tent.

“Elain—” Nesta shoved open the tent.

She stopped short so fast I slammed into her. The tent—the tent was empty.

Nesta flung herself inside, tossing away blankets, as if Elain had somehow sunk into the ground. “Elain!”

I whirled into the camp, scanning the tents nearby. One look at Rhys conveyed what we’d found inside. An Illyrian blade appeared in his hand just before he winnowed.

Azriel stalked to my side, right into the tent where Nesta had now come to her feet. He tucked his wings in tightly as he

squeezed through the narrow space, ignoring Nesta’s snarl of warning, and knelt at the cot.

He ran a scarred hand over the rumpled blankets. “They’re still warm.”

Outside, Cassian was barking orders, the camp rousing.

“The Cauldron,” I breathed. “The Cauldron was fading away—

going somewhere—”

Nesta was already moving, sprinting for where we’d heard that voice. Luring Elain out.

I knew how it had done it.

I’d dreamed of it.

Graysen standing on the edge of camp, calling to her, promising her love and healing.

We reached the copse of trees at the edge of the camp, just as Rhys appeared out of the night, his blade now sheathed across his back. There was something in his hands. No emotion on his carefully neutral face.

Nesta let out a sound that might have been a sob as I realized what he’d found at the edge of the forest. What the Cauldron had left behind in its haste to return to Hybern’s war-camp. Or as a mocking gift.

Elain’s dark blue cloak, still warm from her body.

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64

Nesta sat with her head in her hands inside my tent. She did not speak, did not move. Coiled in on herself, clinging to stay whole—

that’s how she looked. How I felt.

Elain—taken to Hybern’s army.

Nesta had stolen something vital from the Cauldron. And in those moments Nesta had hunted it down for us … The Cauldron had learned what was vital to her.

So the Cauldron had stolen something in return.

“We’ll get her back,” Cassian rasped from where he perched on the rolled arm of the chaise longue across the small sitting area, watching her carefully. Rhys, Amren, and Mor were meeting with the other High Lords, informing them what had been done. Seeing if they knew anything. Had any way of helping.

Nesta lowered her hands, lifting her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, lips thin. “No, you will not.” She pointed to the map on the table. “I saw that army. Its size, who is in it. I saw it, and there is no chance of any of you getting into its heart. Even you,” she added when Cassian opened his mouth again. “Especially not when you’re injured.”

And what Hybern would do to Elain, might already be doing—

From the shadows near the entrance to the tent, Azriel said, as if in answer to some unspoken debate, “I’m getting her back.”

Nesta slid her gaze to the shadowsinger. Azriel’s hazel eyes glowed golden in the shadows.

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Nesta said, “Then you will die.”

Azriel only repeated, rage glazing that stare, “I’m getting her back.”

With the shadows, he might stand a chance of slipping in. But there were wards to consider, and ancient magic, and the king with those spells and the Cauldron …

For a moment, I saw that set of paints Elain had once bought me with the extra money she’d saved. The red, yellow, and blue I’d savored, used to paint that dresser in our cottage. I had not painted in years at that point, had not dared spend the money on myself … But Elain had.

I stood. Met Azriel’s wrathful stare.

“I’m going with you,” I said.

Azriel only nodded.

“You’ll never get far enough into the camp,” Cassian warned.

“I’m going to walk right in.”

And as they narrowed their brows, I shifted myself. Not a glamour, but a true changing of features.

“Shit,” Cassian breathed when I was done.

Nesta rose to her feet. “They might already know she’s dead.”

For it was Ianthe’s face, her hair, that I now possessed. It nearly drained what was left of my depleted magic. Anything more

… I might not have enough left to keep her features in place. But there were other ways. Routes. For the rest of what I needed.

“I need one of your Siphons,” I said to Azriel. The blue was slightly deeper, but at night … they might not notice the difference.

He held out his palm, a round, flat blue stone appearing in it, and chucked it to me. I wrapped my fingers around the warm stone, its power throbbing in my veins like an unearthly heartbeat as I looked to Cassian. “Where is the blacksmith.”

The camp blacksmith did not ask any questions when I handed over the silver candlesticks from my tent and Azriel’s Siphon.

When I asked him to craft that circlet. Immediately.

A mortal blacksmith might have taken a while—days. But a Fae one …

By the time he finished, Azriel had gone to the camp priestess and retrieved a spare set of her robes. Perhaps not identical to Ianthe’s, but close enough. As High Priestess, none would dare look too closely at her. Ask questions.

I had just set the circlet atop my hood when Rhys prowled into our tent. Azriel was honing Truth-Teller with relentless focus, Cassian sharpening the weapons I was to fasten beneath the robe —atop the Illyrian leathers.

“He’ll sense your power,” I said to Rhys before he could speak.

“I know,” Rhys said hoarsely. And I realized—realized the other High Lords had come up empty.

My hands began shaking. I knew the odds. Knew what I’d face in there. I’d seen it in Nesta’s mind hours ago.

Rhys closed the distance between us, clutching my hands.

Gazing at me, and not Ianthe’s face, as if he could see the soul beneath. “There are wards around the camp. You can’t winnow.

You have to walk in—and out. Then you can make the jump back here.”

I nodded.

He brushed a kiss to my brow. “Ianthe sold out your sisters,” he said, his voice turning sharp and hard. “It’s only fitting that you use her to get Elain back.”

He gripped the sides of my face, bringing us nose to nose.

“Do not get distracted. Do not linger. You are a warrior, and warriors know when to pick their fights.”

I nodded, our breath mingling.

Rhys growled. “They took what is ours. And we do not allow those crimes to go unpunished.”

His power rippled and swirled around me.

“You do not fear,” Rhys breathed. “You do not falter. You do not yield. You go in, you get her, and you come out again.”

I nodded again, holding his stare.

“Remember that you are a wolf. And you cannot be caged.”

He kissed my brow one more time, my blood thrumming and boiling in me, howling to draw blood.

I began to buckle on the weapons Cassian had lined up in neat rows on the table, Rhys helping me with the straps and loops, positioning them so that they wouldn’t be visible beneath my robe.

The only one I couldn’t fit was the Illyrian blade—no way to hide it and be able to easily draw it. Cassian gave me an extra dagger to make up for its absence.

“You get them in and out again, shadowsinger,” Rhys said to Azriel as I walked to the spymaster’s side, getting a feel for the weight of the weapons and the flow of the heavy robe. “I don’t care how many of them you have to kill to do it. They both come out.”

Azriel gave a grave, steady nod. “I swear it, High Lord.”

Formal words, formal titles.

I gripped Azriel’s scarred hand, the weight of his Siphon pressing on my brow through the hood. We looked to Rhys, to Cassian and Nesta, to Mor—right as she appeared, breathless, between the tent flaps. Her eyes went to me, then the shadowsinger, and flared with shock and fear— But we were gone.

Azriel’s dark breeze was different from Rhys’s. Colder. Sharper.

It cut through the world like a blade, spearing us toward that army camp.

Night was still overhead, dawn perhaps two hours away, when he landed us in a thick forest on a hilltop that overlooked the outskirts of the mighty camp.

The king had used the same spells that Rhys had put around Velaris and our own forces. Spells to hide it from sight, and dispel people who got too close.

We’d landed inside of them, thanks to Nesta’s specifics. With a perfect view of the city of soldiers that sprawled away into the night.

Campfires burned, as numerous as the stars. Beasts snapped and snarled, yanking on leashes and chains. On and on and on that army went, a squatting terror drinking the life from the earth.

Azriel silently faded into blackness—until he was my own shadow and nothing more.

I fluffed out the priestess’s pale robe, adjusted the circlet atop my head, and began to pick my way down the hill.

Into the heart of Hybern’s army.

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65

The first test would be the most dangerous—and informative.

Passing through the guards stationed at the edge of the camp

—and learning if they’d heard of Ianthe’s demise. Learning what sort of power Ianthe truly wielded here.

I kept my features in that beatific, pretty mask she’d always plastered on her face, head held just so, my mating ring turned facedown and put onto my other hand, a few silver bracelets Azriel had borrowed from the camp priestess dangling at my wrists. I let them jangle loudly, as she had, like a cat with a bell on its collar.

A pet—I supposed Ianthe was no more than a pet of the king.

I couldn’t see Azriel, but I could feel him, as if the Siphon parading itself as Ianthe’s jewel was a tether. He dwelled in every pocket of shadow, darting ahead and behind.

The six guards flanking the camp entrance monitored Ianthe, strutting out of the dark, with unmasked distaste. I steadied my heart, became her, preening and coy, vain and predatory, holy and sensual.

They did not stop me as I walked past them and onto the long avenue that cut through the endless camp. Did not look confused or expectant.

I didn’t dare let my shoulders slump, or even heave a sigh of utter relief. Not as I headed down the broad artery lined by tents

and forges, fires and—and things I did not look at, did not even turn toward as the sounds coming out of them charged at me.

This place made the Court of Nightmares seem like a human sitting room filled with chaste maidens embroidering pillows.

And somewhere in this hell-pit … Elain. Had the Cauldron presented her to the king? Or was she in some in-between, trapped in whatever dark world the Cauldron occupied?

I’d seen the king’s tent in Nesta’s scrying. It had not seemed as far away as it did now, rising like a gargantuan, spiny beast from the center of the camp. Entrance to it would present another set of obstacles.

If we made it that far without being noticed.

The time of night worked to our advantage. The soldiers who were awake were either engaged in activities of varying awfulness, or were on guard and wishing they could be. The rest were asleep.

It was strange, I realized with each bouncing step and jangle of jewelry toward the heart of camp, to consider that Hybern actually needed rest.

I’d somehow assumed they were beyond it—mythic, unending in their strength and rage.

But they, too, tired. And ate. And slept.

Perhaps not as easily or as much as humans, but, with two hours until dawn, we were lucky. Once the sun chased away the shadows, though … Once it made some gaps in my costume all too clear …

It was hard to scan the tents we passed, hard to focus on the sounds of the camp while pretending to be someone wholly used to it. I didn’t even know if Ianthe had a tent here—if she was allowed near the king whenever she wished.

I doubted it—doubted we’d be able to stroll right into his personal tent and find wherever the hell Elain was.

A massive bonfire smoldered and crackled near the center of camp, the sounds of revelry reaching us long before we got a good visual.

I knew within a few heartbeats that most of the soldiers were not sleeping.

They were here.

Celebrating.

Some danced in wicked circles around the fire, their contorted shapes little more than twisted shadows flinging through the night.

Some drank from enormous oak barrels of beer I recognized—

right from Tamlin’s stores. Some writhed with each other—some merely watched.

But through the laughter and singing and music, over the roar of the fire … Screaming.

A shadow gripped my shoulder, reminding me not to run.

Ianthe would not run—would not show alarm.

My mouth went dry as that scream sounded again.

I couldn’t bear it—to let it go on, to see what was being done—

Azriel’s shadow-hand grasped my own, tugging me closer. His rage rippled off his invisible form.

We made a lazy circuit of the revelry, other parts of it becoming clear. The screaming—

It was not Elain.

It was not Elain who hung from a rack near a makeshift dais of granite.

It was one of the Children of the Blessed, young and slender—

My stomach twisted, threatening to surge up my throat. Two others were chained up beside her. From the way they sagged, the injuries on their naked bodies—

Clare. It was like Clare, what had been done to them. And like Clare, they had been left there to rot, left for the crows surely to arrive at dawn.

This one had held out for longer.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t—couldn’t leave her there—

But if I lingered too long, they’d see. And drawing attention to myself …

Could I live with it? I’d once killed two innocents to save Tamlin and his people. I’d be as good as killing her if I left her there in

favor of saving my sister …

Stranger. She was a stranger

“He’s been looking for you,” drawled a hard male voice.

I pivoted to find Jurian striding from between two tents, buckling his sword-belt. I glanced at the dais. And as if an invisible hand wiped away the smoke …

There sat the King of Hybern. He lounged in his chair, head propped on a fist, face a mask of vague amusement as he surveyed the revelry, the torture and torment. The adulation of the crowd that occasionally turned to toast or bow to him.

I willed my voice to soften, adapted that lilt. “I have been busy with my sisters.”

Jurian stared at me for a long moment, eyes sliding to the Siphon atop my head.

I knew the moment he realized who I was. Those brown eyes flared—barely.

“Where is she,” was all I breathed.

Jurian gave a cocky grin. Not directed at me, but anyone watching us. “You’ve been lusting after me for weeks now,” he purred. “Act like it.”

My throat constricted. But I laid a hand on his forearm, batting my eyelashes at him as I stepped closer.

A bemused snort. “I have trouble believing that’s how you won his heart.”

I tried not to scowl. “Where is she.”

“Safe. Untouched.”

My chest caved in at the word.

“Not for long,” Jurian said. “It gave him a shock when she appeared before the Cauldron. He had her contained. Came here to brood over what to do with her. And how to make you pay for it.”

I ran a hand up his arm, then rested it over his heart. “Where.

Is. She.”

Jurian leaned in as if he’d kiss me, and brought his mouth to my ear. “Were you smart enough to kill her before you took her skin?”

My hands tightened on his jacket. “She got what she deserved.”

I could feel Jurian’s smile against my ear. “She’s in his tent.

Chained with steel and a little spell from his favorite book.”

Shit. Shit. Perhaps I should have gotten Helion, who could break almost any—

Jurian caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“Come to my tent with me, Ianthe. Let me see what that pretty mouth can do.”

It was an effort not to recoil, but I let Jurian put a hand on my lower back. He chuckled. “Seems like you’ve already got some steel in you. No need for mine.”

I gave him a pretty, sunshine smile. “What of the girl on the rack?”

Darkness flickered in those eyes. “There have been many before her, and many will come after.”

“I can’t leave her here,” I said through my teeth.

Jurian led me into the labyrinth of tents, heading for that inner circle. “Your sister or her—you won’t be able to take two out.”

“Get her to me, and I’ll make it happen.”

Jurian muttered, “Say you would like to pray before the Cauldron before we retire.”

I blinked, and realized there were guards—guards and that giant, bone-colored tent ahead of us. I clasped my hands before me and said to Jurian, “Before we … retire, I should like to pray before the great Cauldron. To give thanks for today’s bounty.”

Jurian glowered—a man ready for rutting who had been delayed. “Make it quick,” he said, jerking his chin to the guards on either side of the tent flaps. I caught the look he gave them—male to male. They didn’t bother to hide their leering as I passed.

And since I was Ianthe … I gave them each a sultry smile, sizing them up for conquest of a different kind than the one they’d come to Prythian to do.

The one on the right’s answering grin told me he was mine for the taking.

Later, I willed my eyes to say. When I’m done with the human.

He adjusted his belt a bit as I slipped into the tent.

Dim—cold. Like the sky before dawn, that’s how the tent felt.

No crackling braziers, no faelights. And in the center of the massive tent … a darkness that devoured the light. The Cauldron.

The hair on my arms rose.

Jurian whispered in my ear, “You have five minutes to get her out. Take her to the western edge—there’s a cliff overlooking the river. I’ll meet you there.”

I blinked at him.

Jurian’s grin was a slash of white in the gloom. “If you hear screaming, don’t panic.” His diversion. He smirked toward the shadows. “I hope you can carry three, shadowsinger.”

Azriel did not confirm that he was there, that he’d heard.

Jurian studied me for a heartbeat longer. “Save a dagger for your own heart. If they catch you alive, the king will—” He shook his head. “Don’t let them catch you alive.”

Then he was gone.

Azriel emerged from the deep shadows in the corner of the tent a heartbeat later. He jerked his chin toward the curtains in the back. I began intoning one of Ianthe’s many prayers, a pretty speech I’d heard her say a thousand times at the Spring Court.

We rushed across the rugs, dodging tables and furniture. I chanted her prayers all the while.

Azriel slid back the curtain—

Elain was in her nightgown. Gagged, wrists wrapped in steel that glowed violet. Her eyes went wide as she saw us—Azriel and me

I shifted my face back into my own, raising a hand to my lips as Azriel knelt before her. I kept up my litany of praying, beseeching the Cauldron to make my womb fruitful, on and on—

Azriel gently removed the gag from her mouth. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, devouring the sight of him as if not quite believing it. “You came for me.” The shadowsinger only inclined his head.

“Hurry,” I whispered, then resumed my prayer. We had until it ran out.

Azriel’s Siphons flared, the one atop my head warming.

The magic did nothing when it came into contact with those bonds. Nothing.

Only a few more verses of my prayer left to chant.

Her wrists and ankles were bound. She couldn’t run out of here with them on.

I reached a hand toward her, scrambling for a thread of Helion’s power to unravel the king’s spell on the chains. But my magic was still depleted, in shambles—

“We don’t have time,” Azriel murmured. “He’s coming.”

The screaming and shouting began.

Azriel scooped up Elain, looping her bound arms around his neck. “Hold tight,” he ordered her, “and don’t make a sound.”

Barking and baying rent the night. I drew off the robe, and pocketed Azriel’s Siphon before palming two knives. “Out the back?”

A nod. “Get ready to run.”

My heart thundered. Elain glanced between us, but did not tremble. Did not cringe.

“Run, and don’t stop,” he told me. “We sprint for the western edge—the cliff.”

“If Jurian’s not there with the girl in time—”

“Then you will go. I’ll get her.”

I blew out a breath, steadying myself.

The barking and growling grew louder—closer.

“Now,” Azriel hissed, and we ran.

His Siphons blazed, and the canvas of the back of the tent melted into nothing. We bolted through it before the guards nearby noticed.

They didn’t react to us. Only peered at the hole.

Azriel had made us invisible—shadow-bound.

We sprinted between tents, feet flying over the grass and dirt.

“Hurry,” he whispered. “The shadows won’t last long.”

For in the east, behind us … the sun was beginning to rise.

A piercing howl split the dying night. And I knew they’d realized what we’d done. That we were here. And even if they couldn’t see us … the King of Hybern’s hounds could scent us.

Faster,” Azriel snarled.

The earth shuddered behind us. I didn’t dare look behind.

We neared a rack of weapons. I sheathed my knives, freeing my hands as we hurtled past and I snatched a bow and quiver of arrows from their stand. Ash arrows.

The arrows clacked as I slung the quiver over a shoulder. As I nocked an arrow into place.

Azriel cut right, swerving around a tent.

And with the angle … I turned and fired.

The nearest hound—it was not a hound, I realized as the arrow spiraled for its head.

But some cousin of the naga—some monstrous, scaled thing that thundered on all fours, serpentine face snarling and full of bone-shredding white teeth—

My arrow went right through its throat.

It went down, and we rounded the tent, hurtling for that still-dim western horizon.

I nocked another arrow.

Three others. Three more behind us, gaining with every clawed step—

I could feel them around us—Hybern commanders, racing along with the hounds, tracking the beasts because they still could not see us. That arrow I’d fired had told them enough about the distance. But the moment the hounds caught up … those commanders would appear. Kill us or drag us away.

Row after row of tents, slowly awakening at the ruckus in the center of the camp.

The air rippled, and I looked up to see the rain of ash arrows unleashed from behind, so many they were a blind attempt to hit any target—

Azriel’s blue shield shuddered at the impact, but held. Yet our shadows shivered and faded.

The hounds closed in, two breaking away—to cut to the side.

To herd us.

For that was a cliff at the other edge of the camp. A cliff with a very, very long drop, and unforgiving river below.

And standing at its end, huddled in a dark cloak …

That was the girl.

Jurian had left her there—for us. Where he’d gone … I saw no sign of him.

But behind us, filling the air as if he’d used magic to do so …

The king spoke.

“What intrepid thieves,” he drawled, the words everywhere and nowhere. “How shall I punish you?”

I had no doubt the wards ended just beyond the cliff’s edge. It was confirmed by the snarls of the hounds, who seemed to know that their prey would escape in less than a hundred yards. If we could jump far enough to be clear of them.

Get her out, Azriel,” I begged him, panting. “I’ll get the other.”

“We’re all—”

That’s an order.”

A clean shot, an unimpeded path right to that cliff’s edge, and to freedom beyond—

“You need to—” My words were cut off.

I felt the impact before the pain. The searing, burning pain that erupted through my shoulder. An ash arrow—

My feet snagged beneath me, blood spraying, and I hit the rocky ground so hard my bones groaned. Azriel swore, but with Elain in his arms, fighting—

The hounds were there in a second.

I fired an arrow at one, my shoulder screaming with the movement. The hound fell, clearing the view behind.

Revealing the king striding down the line of tents, unhurried and assured of our capture, a bow dangling from his hand. The bow that had delivered the arrow now piercing through my body.

“Torturing you would be so dull,” the king mused, voice still magnified. “At least, the traditional sort of torture.” Every step was slow, intentional. “How Rhysand shall rage. How he shall panic.

His mate, at last come to see me.”

Before I could warn Azriel to hurry, the other two hounds were on me.

One leaped right for me. I lifted my bow to intercept its jaws.

The hound snapped it in two, hurling the wood away. I grabbed for a knife, just as the second one leaped—

A roar deafened me, made my head ring. Just as one of the hounds was thrown off me.

I knew that roar, knew—

A golden-furred beast with curling horns tore into the hounds.

“Tamlin,” I got out, but his green eyes narrowed. Run, he seemed to say.

That was who had been running alongside us. Trying to find us.

He ripped and shredded, the hounds launching themselves wholly on him. The king paused, and though he remained far off, I could clearly make out the surprise slackening his face.

Now. I had to go now

I scrambled to my feet, whipping the arrow out with a swallowed scream. Azriel was already there, no more than a few heartbeats having passed—

Azriel gripped me by the collar, and a web of blue light fastened itself at my shoulder. Holding the blood in, a bandage until a healer—

“You need to fly,” he panted.

Six more hounds closed in. Tamlin still fought the others, gaining ground—holding the line.

“We need to get airborne,” Azriel said, one eye now on the king as he resumed his mockingly slow approach. “Can you make it?”

The young woman was still standing at the edge of the cliff.

Watching us with wide eyes, black hair whipping over her face.

I’d never made a running takeoff before. I’d barely been able to keep in the skies.

Even if Azriel took the girl in his free arm …

I didn’t let myself consider the alternative. I would get airborne.

Only long enough to sail over that cliff, and winnow out when we’d passed the wards’ edge.

Tamlin let out a yelp of what sounded like pain, followed by another earth-shuddering roar. The rest of the hounds had reached him. He did not falter, did not yield an inch to them— I summoned the wings. The drag and weight of them … Even with the Siphon-bandage, pain razed my senses at the tug on my muscles.

I panted through my gritted teeth as Azriel plunged ahead, wings beginning to flap. Not enough space on the jutting ledge for us to do this side by side. I gobbled down details of his takeoff, the beating of his wings, the shifting angle of his body.

“Grab onto him!” Elain ordered the wide-eyed human girl as Azriel thundered toward her. The girl looked like a doe about to be run down by a wolf.

The girl did not open her arms as they neared.

Elain screamed at her, “If you want to live, do it now!”

The girl dropped her cloak, opened her arms wide.

Her black hair streamed behind Azriel, catching amongst his wings as he practically tackled her into the sky. But I saw, even as I ran, Elain’s pale hands lurch—gripping the girl by her neck, holding her as tightly as she could.

And just in time.

One of the hounds broke free from Tamlin in a mighty leap. I ducked, bracing for impact.

But it was not aiming for me. Two bounding strides down the stone ledge and another leap—

Azriel’s roar echoed off the rocks as the hound slammed into him, dragging those shredding talons down his spine, his wings—

The girl screamed, but Elain moved. As Azriel battled to keep them airborne, keep his grip on them, my sister sent a fierce kick into the beast’s face. Its eye. Another. Another.

It bellowed, and Elain slammed her bare, muddy foot into its face again. The blow struck home.

With a yelp of pain, it released its claws—and plunged into the ravine.

So fast. It happened so fast. And blood—blood sprayed from his back, his wings—

But Azriel remained in the air. Blue light splayed over the wounds. Staunching the blood, stabilizing his wings. I was still running for the cliff as he whirled, revealing a pain-bleached face, while he gripped the two women tightly.

But he beheld what charged after me. The sprint ahead. And for the first time since I had known him, there was terror in Azriel’s eyes as he watched me make that run.

I flapped my wings, an updraft hauling my feet up, then crashing them down onto the rock. I stumbled, but kept running, kept flapping, back screaming—

Another one of the hounds broke past Tamlin’s guard. Came barreling down that narrow stretch of rock, claws gouging the stone beneath. I could have sworn the king laughed from behind.

“Faster!” Azriel roared, blood oozing with each wing beat. I could see the dawn through the shreds in the membrane. “Push up!”

The stone echoed with the thunderous steps of the hound at my heels.

The end of the rock loomed. Freefall lay beyond. And I knew the hound would leap with me. The king would have it retrieve me by any means necessary, even if my body was broken on the river far, far below. This high, I would splatter like an egg dropped from a tower.

And he’d keep whatever was left of me, as Jurian had been kept, alive and aware.

“Hold them high!”

I stretched my wings as far as they would go. Thirty steps between me and the edge.

“Legs up!”

Twenty steps. The sun broke over the eastern horizon, gilding Azriel’s bloody armor with gold.

The king fired another arrow—two. One for me, one soaring for Elain’s exposed back. Azriel slammed both away with a blue shield. I didn’t look to see if that shield extended to Tamlin.

Ten steps. I beat my wings, muscles screaming, blood sliding past even that Siphon’s bandage. Beat them as I sent a wave of wind rising up beneath me, air filling the flexible membrane, even as the bone and sinews strained to snapping.

My feet lifted from the ground. Then hit again. I pushed with the wind, flapping like hell. The hound gained on me.

Five steps. I knew—I knew that whatever force had compelled me to learn to fly … Somehow, it had known. That this moment was coming. All of it—all of it, for this moment.

And with barely three steps to the edge of that cliff … A warm wind, kissed with lilac and new grass, blasted up from beneath me. A wind of—spring. Lifting me, filling my wings.

My feet rose. And rose. And rose.

The hound leaped after me.

“Bank!”

I threw my body sideways, wings swinging me wide. The rising dawn and drop and sky tilted and spun before I evened out.

I looked behind to see that naga-hound snap at where my heels had been. And then plunge down, down, down into the ravine and river below.

The king fired again, the arrow tipped with glimmering amethyst power. Azriel’s shield held—barely. Whatever magic the king had wrapped around it—Azriel grunted in pain.

But he snarled, “Fly,” and I veered toward the way I’d come, back trembling with the effort to keep my body upright. Azriel turned, the girl moaning in terror as he lost a few feet to the sky— before he leveled out and soared beside me.

The king barked a command, and a barrage of arrows arced up from the camp—rained down upon us.

Image 82

Azriel’s shield buckled, but held solid. I flapped my wings, back shrieking.

I pressed a hand to my wound, just as the wards pushed against me. Pushed as if they tried and tried to contain me, to hold Azriel where he now flapped like hell against them, blood spraying from those wounded wings, sliding down his shredded back— I unleashed a flare of Helion’s white light. Burning, singeing, melting.

A hole ripped through the wards. Barely wide enough.

We didn’t hesitate as we sailed through, as I gasped for breath.

But I looked back. Just once.

Tamlin was surrounded by the hounds. Bleeding, panting, still in that beast form.

The king was perhaps thirty feet away, livid—utterly livid as he beheld the hole I’d again ripped through his wards. Tamlin made the most of his distraction.

He did not glance toward us as he made a break for the cliff edge.

He leaped far—far and wide. Farther than any beast or Fae should be able to. That wind he’d sent my way now bolstering him, guiding him toward that hole we’d swept through.

Tamlin cleared it and winnowed away, still not looking at me as I gripped Azriel’s hand and we vanished as well.

Azriel’s power gave out on the outskirts of our camp.

The girl, despite the burns and lashings on her moon-white skin, was able to walk.

The gray light of morning had broken over the world, mist clinging to our ankles as we headed into that camp, Azriel still cradling Elain to his chest. He dripped blood behind him the entire time—a trickle compared to the torrent that should be leaking out.

Contained only by the patches of power he’d slapped on it. Help—

he needed a healer immediately.

We both did. I pressed a hand against the wound in my shoulder to keep the bleeding minimal. The girl went so far as to even offer to use her lingering scraps of clothing to bind it.

I didn’t have the breath to explain that I was Fae, and there had been ash in my skin. I needed to see a healer before it set and sealed in any splinters. So I just asked for her name.

Briar, she said, her voice raw from screaming. Her name was Briar.

She did not seem to mind the mud that squelched under her feet and splattered her bare shins. She only gazed at the tents, the soldiers who stumbled out. One saw Azriel and shouted for a healer to hurry for the spymaster’s tent.

Rhys winnowed into our path before we’d made it past the first line of tents. His eyes went right to Azriel’s wings, then the wound in my shoulder, the paleness of my face. To Elain, then Briar.

“I couldn’t leave her,” I said, surprised to find my own voice raw.

Running steps approached, and then Nesta rounded a tent, skidding to a halt in the mud.

She let out a sob at the sight of Elain, still in Azriel’s arms. I’d never heard a sound like that from her. Not once.

She isn’t hurt, I said to her, into that chamber in her mind.

Because words … I couldn’t form them.

Nesta broke into another sprint. I reached for Rhysand, his face taut as he stalked for us—

But Nesta got there first.

I swallowed my shout of pain as Nesta’s arms went around my neck and she embraced me so hard it snatched my breath away.

Her body shook—shook as she sobbed and said over and over and over, “Thank you.”

Rhys lunged for Azriel, taking Elain from him and gently setting my sister down. Azriel rasped, swaying on his feet, “We need Helion to get these chains off her.”

Yet Elain didn’t seem to notice them as she rose up on her toes and kissed the shadowsinger’s cheek. And then walked to me and

Nesta, who pulled back long enough to survey Elain’s clean face, her clear eyes.

“We need to get you to Thesan,” Rhys said to Azriel. “Right now.”

Before I could turn back, Elain threw her arms around me. I did not remember when I began to cry as I felt those slender arms hold me, tight as steel.

I did not remember the healer who patched me up, or how Rhys bathed me. How I told him what happened with Jurian, and Tamlin, Nesta hovering around Elain as Helion came to remove her chains, cursing the king’s handiwork, even as he admired its quality.

But I did remember lying down on the bearskin rug once it was done. How I felt Elain’s slim body settle next to mine and curl into my side, careful not to touch the bandaged wound in my shoulder.

I had not realized how cold I was until her warmth seeped into me.

A moment later, another warm body nestled on my left. Nesta’s scent drifted over me, fire and steel and unbending will.

Distantly, I heard Rhys usher everyone out—to join him in checking on Azriel, now under Thesan’s care.

I didn’t know how long my sisters and I lay there together, just like we had once shared that carved bed in that dilapidated cottage. Then—back then, we had kicked and twisted and fought for any bit of space, any breathing room.

But that morning, as the sun rose over the world, we held tight.

And did not let go.

CHAPTER

66

Kallias and his army arrived by noon.

It was only the sound of it that woke me from where my sisters and I dozed on the floor. That, and a thought that clanged through me.

Tamlin.

His actions would cover Jurian’s betrayal. I had no doubt Tamlin hadn’t gone back to Hybern’s army after the meeting to betray us

—but to play spy.

Though after last night … it was unlikely he’d get close to Hybern again. Not when the king himself had witnessed everything.

I didn’t know what to make of it.

That he’d saved me—that he’d given up his deception to do so.

Where had he gone to when he’d winnowed? We hadn’t heard anything about the Spring Court forces.

And that wind he’d sent … I’d never seen him use such a power.

The Nephelle Philosophy indeed. The weakness that had transformed into a strength hadn’t been my wings, my flying. But Tamlin. If he hadn’t interfered … I didn’t let myself consider.

Elain and Nesta were still dozing on the bearskin rug when I eased out from their tangle of limbs. Washed my face in the copper basin set near my bed. A glimpse in the mirror above it revealed I’d seen better days. Weeks. Months.

I peeled back the neck of my white shirt to frown at the wound bandaged at my shoulder. I winced, rotating the joint—marveling at how much it had already healed. My back, however …

Aching pain jolted and rippled all along it. In my abdomen, too.

Muscles I’d pushed to the breaking point to get airborne. Frowning at the mirror, I braided my hair and shrugged on my jacket, hissing at the movement in my shoulder. Another day or two, and the pain might be minimal enough to wield a sword. Maybe.

I prayed Azriel would be in better shape. If Thesan himself had been healing him, perhaps he was. If we were lucky.

I didn’t know how Azriel had managed to stay aloft—stay conscious during those minutes in the sky. I didn’t let myself think about how and when and why he’d learned to manage pain like that.

I quietly asked the nearest camp-mother to dig up some platters of food for my sisters. Elain was likely starving, and I doubted Nesta had eaten anything during the hours we’d been gone.

The winged matron only asked if I needed anything, and when I told her I was fine, she just clicked her tongue and said she’d make sure food found its way to me, too.

I didn’t have the nerve to request she find some of Amren’s preferred food as well. Even if I had no doubt Amren would need it

—after her … activities with Varian last night. Unless he’d—

I didn’t let myself think about that as I aimed for her tent. We’d found Hybern’s army. And having seen it last night … I’d offer Amren any help I could in decoding that spell the Suriel had pointed her toward. Anything, if it meant stopping the Cauldron.

And when we’d picked our final battlefield … then, only then, would I unleash Bryaxis upon Hybern.

I was nearly to her tent, offering grim smiles in exchange for the nods and wary glances the Illyrian warriors gave me, when I spied the commotion just near the edge of camp. A few extra steps had me staring out across a thin demarcation line of grass and mud— to the Winter Court camp now nearly constructed in its full splendor.

Kallias’s army was still winnowing in supplies and units of warriors, his court made up of High Fae with either his snow-white hair or hair of blackest night, skin ranging from moon pale to rich brown. The lesser fae … he’d brought more lesser faeries than any of us, if you excluded the Illyrians. It was an effort not to gawk as I lingered at the edge of where their camp began.

Long-limbed creatures like shards of ice given form stalked past, tall enough to plant the cobalt-and-silver banners atop various tents; wagons were hauled by sure-footed reindeer and lumbering white bears in ornate armor, some so keenly aware when they ambled by that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they could talk. White foxes scuttled about underfoot, bearing what looked to be messages strapped to their little embroidered vests.

Our Illyrian army was brutal, basic—few frills and sheer rank reigned. Kallias’s army—or, I suppose, the army that Viviane had held together during Amarantha’s reign—was a complex, beautiful, teeming thing. Orderly, and yet thrumming with life.

Everyone had a purpose, everyone seemed keen on doing it efficiently and proudly.

I spotted Mor walking with Viviane and a stunningly beautiful young woman who looked like either Viviane’s twin or sister.

Viviane was beaming, Mor perhaps more subdued for once, and as she twisted—

My brows rose. The human girl—Briar—was with them. Now tucked beneath Viviane’s arm, face still bruised and swollen in spots, but … smiling timidly at the Winter Court ladies.

Viviane began to lead Briar away, chattering merrily, and Mor and Viviane’s possible-sister lingered to watch them. Mor said something to the stranger that made her smile—well, slightly.

It was a restrained smile, and it faded quickly. Especially as a High Fae soldier strode past, grinned at her with some teasing remark, and then continued on. Mor watched the female’s face carefully—and swiftly looked away as she turned back to her, clapped Mor on the shoulder, and strode off after her possible-sister and Briar.

I remembered our argument the moment Mor turned toward me. Remembered the words we’d left unsaid, the ones I probably shouldn’t have spoken. Mor flipped her hair over a shoulder and headed right for me.

I spoke before she could get the first word out, “You gave Briar over to them?”

We fell into step back toward our own camp. “Az explained the state you found her in. I didn’t think being exposed to battle-ready Illyrians would do much to soothe her.”

“And the Winter Court army is much better?”

“They’ve got fuzzy animals.”

I snorted, shaking my head. Those enormous bears were indeed fuzzy—if you ignored the claws and teeth.

Mor glanced sidelong at me. “You did a very brave thing in saving Briar.”

“Anyone would have done it.”

“No,” she said, adjusting her tight Illyrian jacket. “I’m not sure …

I’m not sure even I would have tried to get her. If I would have deemed the risk worth it. I’ve made enough calls like that where it went badly that I …” She shook her head.

I swallowed. “How’s Azriel?”

“Alive. His back is fine. But Thesan hasn’t healed many Illyrian wings, so the healing is … slow. Different from repairing Peregryn wings, apparently. Rhys sent for Madja.” The healer in Velaris.

“She’ll be here either later today or tomorrow to work on him.”

“Will he—fly again?”

“Considering Cassian’s wings were in worse shape, I’d say yes.

But … perhaps not in battle. Not anytime soon.”

My stomach tightened. “He won’t be happy about that.”

“None of us are.”

To lose Azriel on the field …

Mor seemed to read what I was thinking and said, “Better than being dead.” She dragged a hand through her golden hair. “It

would have been so easy—for things to have gone wrong last night. And when I saw you two vanish … I had this thought, this terror, that I might not get to see you again. To make things right.”

“I said things I didn’t really mean to—”

“We both did.” She led me up to the tree line at the border of both our camps, and I knew from that alone … I knew she was about to tell me something she didn’t wish anyone overhearing.

Something worth delaying my meeting with Amren for a little while.

She leaned against a towering oak, foot tap-tapping on the ground. “No more lies between us.”

Guilt tugged on my gut. “Yes,” I said. “I—I’m sorry about deceiving you. I just … I made a mistake. And I’m sorry.”

Mor rubbed her face. “You were right about me, though. You were …” Her hand shook as she lowered it. She gnawed on her lip, throat bobbing. Her eyes at last met mine—bright and fearful and anguished. Her voice broke as she said, “I don’t love Azriel.”

I remained perfectly still. Listening.

“No, that’s not true, either. I—I do love him. As my family. And sometimes I wonder if it can be … more, but … I do not love him.

Not the way he—he feels for me.” The last words were a trembling whisper.

“Have you ever loved him? That way?”

“No.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “No. I don’t … You see …” I’d never seen her at such a loss for words. She closed her eyes, fingers digging into her skin. “I can’t love him like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I prefer females.”

For a heartbeat, only silence rippled through me. “But—you sleep with males. You slept with Helion …” And had looked terrible the next day. Tortured and not at all sated.

Not just because of Azriel, but … because it wasn’t what she wanted.

“I do find pleasure in them. In both.” Her hands were shaking so fiercely that she gripped herself even tighter. “But I’ve known, since I was little more than a child, that I prefer females. That I’m … attracted to them more over males. That I connect with them, care for them more on that soul-deep level. But at the Hewn City

… All they care about is breeding their bloodlines, making alliances through marriage. Someone like me … If I were to marry where my heart desired, there would be no offspring. My father’s bloodline would have ended with me. I knew it—knew that I could never tell them. Ever. People like me … we’re reviled by them.

Considered selfish, for not being able to pass on the bloodline. So I never breathed a word of it. And then … then my father betrothed me to Eris, and … And it wasn’t just the prospect of marriage to him that scared me. No, I knew I could survive his brutality, his cruelty and coldness. I was—I am stronger than him.

It was … It was the idea of being bred like a prize mare, of being forced to give up that one part of me …” Her mouth wobbled, and I reached for her hand, prying it off her arm. I squeezed gently as tears began sliding down her flushed face.

“I slept with Cassian because I knew it would mean little to him, too. Because I knew doing it would buy me a shot at freedom. If I had told my parents that I preferred females … You’ve met my father. He and Beron would have tied me to that marriage bed for Eris. Literally. But sullied … I knew my shot at freedom lay there.

And I saw how Azriel looked at me … knew how he felt. And if I’d chosen him …” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been fair to him. So I slept with Cassian, and Azriel thought I deemed him unsuitable, and then everything happened and …” Her fingers tightened on mine. “After Azriel found me with that note nailed to my womb … I tried to explain. But he started to confess what he felt, and I panicked, and … and to get him to stop, to keep him from saying he loved me, I just turned and left, and … and I couldn’t face explaining it after that. To Az, to the others.”

She loosed a shuddering breath. “I sleep with males in part because I enjoy it, but … also to keep people from looking too closely.”

“Rhys wouldn’t care—I don’t think anyone in Velaris would.”

A nod. “Velaris is … a haven for people like me. Rita’s … the owner is like me. A lot of us go there—without anyone really ever picking up on it.”

No wonder she practically lived at the pleasure hall.

“But this part of me …” Mor wiped at her tears with her free hand. “It didn’t matter as much, when my family disowned me.

When they called me a whore and a piece of trash. When they hurt me. Because those things … they weren’t part of me. Weren’t true, and weren’t … intrinsic. They couldn’t break me because …

because they never touched that innermost part of me. They never even guessed. But I hid it … I’ve hidden it because …” She tilted back her head, looking skyward. “Because I live in terror of my family finding out—and shaming me, hurting me about this one thing that has remained wholly mine. This one part of me. I won’t let them … won’t let them destroy it. Or try to. So I’ve rarely …

During the War, I finally took my first—female lover.”

She was quiet for a long moment, blinking away tears. “It was Nephelle and her lover—now her wife, I suppose—who made me dare to try. They made me so jealous. Not of them personally, but just … of what they had. Their openness. That they lived in a place, with a people who thought nothing of it. But with the War, with the traveling across the world … No one from home was with me for months at a time. It was safe, for once. And one of the human queens …”

The friends she had so passionately mentioned, had known so intimately.

“Her name was Andromache. And she was … so beautiful. And kind. And I loved her … so much.”

Human. Andromache had been human. My eyes burned.

“But she was human. And a queen—who needed to continue her royal line, especially during such a tumultuous time. So I left—

went home after the last battle. And when I realized what a mistake it was, that I didn’t care if I only had sixty more years with her … The wall went up that day.” A small sob came out of her.

“And I could not … I was not allowed or able to cross it. I tried.

For three years, I tried over and over. And by the time I managed to find a hole to cross … She had married. A man. And had an infant daughter—with another on the way. I didn’t set foot inside her castle. Didn’t even try to see her. I just turned around and went home.”

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, my voice breaking.

“She bore five children. And died an old woman, safe in her bed. And I saw her spirit again—in that golden queen. Her descendant.”

Mor closed her eyes, breath rippling past her shaking lips. “For a while, I mourned her. Both while she lived and after she died.

For a few decades, there were no lovers—of any kind. But then …

one day I woke up, and I wanted … I don’t know what I wanted.

The opposite of her. I found them—female, male. A few lovers over these past centuries, the females always secret—and I think that’s why it wore on them, why they always ended it. I could never be … open about it. Never be seen with them. And as for the males … it never went as deep. The bond, I mean. Even if I did still crave—you know, every now and then.” A huff of a laugh that I echoed. “But all of them … It wasn’t the same as Andromache. It doesn’t feel the same—in here,” she breathed, putting a hand over her heart.

“And the male lovers I took … it became a way to keep Azriel from wondering why—why I wouldn’t notice him. Make that move.

You see—you see how marvelous he is. How special. But if I slept with him, even once, just to try it, to make sure … I think after all this time, he’d think it was a culmination—a happy ending. And …

I think it might shatter him if I revealed afterward that … I’m not sure I can give my entire heart to him that way. And … and I love him enough to want him to find someone who can truly love him like he deserves. And I love myself … I love myself enough to not want to settle until I find that person, too.” A shrug. “If I can even work up the courage to tell the world first. My gift is truth—and yet I have been living a lie my entire existence.”

I squeezed her hand once more. “You’ll tell them when you’re ready. And I’ll stand by you no matter what. Until then … Your secret is safe. I won’t tell anyone—even Rhys.”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

I shook my head. “No—thank you for telling me. I’m honored.”

“I wanted to tell you; I realized I wanted to tell you the moment you and Azriel winnowed to Hybern’s camp. And the thought of not being able to tell you …” Her fingers tightened around mine. “I promised the Mother that if you made it back safely, I would tell you.”

“It seemed she was happy to take the bargain,” I said with a smile.

Mor wiped at her face and grinned. It faded almost instantly.

“You must think I’m horrible for stringing along Azriel—and Cassian.”

I considered. “No. No, I don’t.” So many things—so many things now made sense. How Mor had looked away from the heat in Azriel’s eyes. How she’d avoided that sort of romantic intimacy, but had been fine to defend him if she felt his physical or emotional well-being was at stake.

Azriel loved her, of that I had no doubt. But Mor … I’d been blind not to see. Not to realize that there was a damn good reason why five hundred years had passed and Mor had not accepted what Azriel so clearly offered to her.

“Do you think Azriel suspects?” I asked.

Mor drew her hand from mine and paced a few steps. “Maybe. I don’t know. He’s too observant not to, but … I think it confuses him whenever I take a male home.”

“So the thing with Helion … Why?”

“He wanted a distraction from his own problems, and I …” She sighed. “Whenever Azriel makes his feelings clear, like he did with Eris … It’s stupid, I know. It’s so stupid and cruel that I do this, but … I slept with Helion just to remind Azriel … Gods, I can’t even say it. It sounds even worse saying it.”

“To remind him that you’re not interested.”

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“I should tell him. I need to tell him. Mother above, after last night, I should. But …” She twisted her mass of golden hair over a shoulder. “It’s gone on for so long. So long. I’m petrified to face him—to tell him he’s spent five hundred years pining for someone and something that won’t ever exist. The potential fallout … I like things the way they are. Even if I can’t … can’t really be me, I …

things are good enough.”

“I don’t think you should settle for ‘good enough,’ ” I said quietly.

“But I understand. And, again … when you decide the time is right, whether it’s tomorrow or in another five hundred years … I’ll have your back.”

She blinked away tears again. I turned toward the camp, and a faint smile bloomed on my mouth.

“What?” she asked, coming to my side.

“I was just thinking,” I said, smile growing, “that whenever you’re ready … I was thinking about how much fun I’m going to have playing matchmaker for you.”

Mor’s answering grin was brighter than the entirety of the Day Court.

Amren had secluded herself in a tent, and would not let anyone in.

Not me, or Varian, or Rhysand.

I certainly tried, hissing as I pushed against her wards, but even Helion’s magic could not break them. And no matter how I demanded and coaxed and pleaded, she did not answer.

Whatever the Suriel had told me to suggest to her about the Book

… she’d deemed it more vital, it seemed, than even why I’d come to speak to her: to join me in retrieving Bryaxis. I could likely do it without her since she’d already disabled the wards to contain Bryaxis, but … Amren’s presence would be … welcome. On my end, at least.

Perhaps it made me a coward, but facing Bryaxis on my own, to bind it into a slightly more tangible body and summon it here at

last to smash through Hybern’s army … Amren would be better—

at the talking, the ordering.

But since I wasn’t about to start shouting about my plans in the middle of that camp … I cursed Amren soundly and stormed back to my war-tent.

Only to find that my plans were to be upended anyway. For even if I brought Bryaxis to Hybern’s army … That army was no longer where it was supposed to be.

Standing beside the enormous worktable in the war-tent, every side flanked with High Lords and their commanders, I crossed my arms as Helion slid an unnerving number of figures across the lower half of Prythian’s map. “My scouts say Hybern is on the move as of this afternoon.”

Azriel, perched on a stool, his wings and back heavily bandaged and face still grayish with blood loss, nodded once. “My spies say the same.” His voice was still hoarse from screaming.

Helion’s blazing amber eyes narrowed. “He shifted directions, though. He’d planned to move that army north—drive us back that way. Now he marches due east.”

Rhys braced his hands on the table, his sable hair sliding forward as he studied the map. “So he’s now heading straight across the island—to what end? He would have been better off sailing around. And I doubt he’s changed his mind about meeting us in battle. Even with Tamlin now revealed as an enemy.” They’d all been quietly shocked, some relieved, to hear it. Though we’d had no whisper of whether Tamlin would be now marching his small force to us. And nothing from Beron, either.

Tarquin frowned. “Losing Tamlin won’t cost him many troops, but Hybern could be going to meet another ally on the eastern coast—to rendezvous with the army of those human queens from the continent.”

Azriel shook his head, wincing at the movement and what it surely did to his back. “He sent the queens back to their homes—

and there they remain, their armies not even raised. He’ll wait to wield that host until he arrives on the continent.”

Once he was done annihilating us. And if we failed tomorrow …

would there be anyone at all to challenge Hybern on the continent? Especially once those queens rallied their human armies to his banner—

“Perhaps he’s leading us on another chase,” Kallias mused with a frown, Viviane peering at the map beside him.

“Not Hybern’s style,” Mor said. “He doesn’t establish patterns—

he knows we’re onto his first method of stretching us thin. Now he’ll try another way.”

As she spoke, Keir—standing with two silent Darkbringer captains—studied her closely. I braced myself for any sort of sneer, but the male merely resumed examining the map. These meetings had been the only place where she’d bothered to acknowledge her father’s role in this war—and even then, even now, she barely glanced his way.

But it was better than outright hostility, though I had no doubt Mor was wise enough not to lay into Keir when we still needed his Darkbringers. Especially after Keir’s legion had suffered so many losses at that second battle. Whether Keir was furious about those casualties, he had not let on—neither had any of his soldiers, who did not speak with anyone outside their own ranks beyond what was necessary. Silence, I supposed, was far preferable. And Keir’s sense of self-preservation no doubt kept his mouth shut in these meetings—and bade him take whatever orders were sent his way.

“Hybern is delaying the conflict,” Helion murmured. “Why?”

I glanced over at Nesta, sitting with Elain by the faelight braziers. “He still doesn’t have the missing piece. Of the Cauldron’s power.”

Rhys angled his head, studying the map, then my sisters.

“Cassian.” He pointed to the massive river snaking inland through the Spring Court. “If we were to cut south from where we are now

—to head right down to the human lands … would you cross that river, or go west far enough to avoid it?”

Cassian lifted a brow. Gone was yesterday’s pallid face and pain. A small mercy.

On the opposite side of the table, Lord Devlon seemed inclined to open his mouth to give his opinion. Unlike Keir, the Illyrian commander had no such qualms about making his disdain for us known. Especially in regard to Cassian’s command.

But before Devlon could shove his way in, Cassian said, “A river crossing like that would be time-consuming and dangerous.

The river’s too wide. Even with winnowing, we’d have to construct boats or bridges to get across. And an army this size … We’d have to go west, then cut south—”

As the words faded, Cassian’s face paled. And I looked at where Hybern’s army was now marching eastward, below that mighty river. From where we were now—

“He wanted us exhausting ourselves on winnowing armies around,” Helion said, picking up the thread of Cassian’s thought.

“On fighting those battles. So that when it counted, we would not have the strength to winnow past that river. We’d have to go on foot—and take the long way around to avoid the crossing.”

Tarquin swore now. “So he could march south, knowing we’re days behind. And enter the human lands with no resistance.”

“He could have done that from the start,” Kallias countered. My knees began to shake. “Why now?”

It was Nesta who said from her seat across the room beside the faelight brazier, “Because we insulted him. Me—and my sisters.”

All eyes went to us.

Elain put a hand on her throat. She breathed, “He’s going to march on the human lands—butcher them. To spite us?”

“I killed his priestess,” I murmured. “You took from his Cauldron,” I said to Nesta. “And you …” I examined Elain.

“Stealing you back was the final insult.”

Kallias said, “Only a madman would wield the might of his army just to get revenge on three women.”

Helion snorted. “You forget that some of us fought in the War.

We know firsthand how unhinged he can be. And that something like this would be exactly his style.”

I caught Rhys’s eye. What do we do?

Rhys’s thumb brushed down the back of my hand. “He knows we’ll come.”

“I’d say he’s assuming quite a lot about how much we care for humans,” Helion said. Keir looked inclined to agree, but wisely remained silent.

Rhys shrugged. “He’ll have seen our prioritizing of Elain’s safety as proof that the Archeron sisters hold sway here. He thinks they’ll convince us to haul our asses down there, likely to a battlefield with few advantages, and be annihilated.”

“So we’re not going to?” Tarquin frowned.

“Of course we’re going to,” Rhys said, straightening to his full height and lifting his chin. “We will be outnumbered, and exhausted, and it will not end well. But this has nothing to do with my mate, or her sisters. The wall is down. It is gone. It is a new world, and we must decide how we are to end this old one and begin it anew. We must decide if we will begin it by allowing those who cannot defend themselves to be slaughtered. If that is the sort of people we are. Not individual courts. We, as a Fae people.

Do we let the humans stand alone?”

“We’ll all die together, then,” Helion said.

“Good,” Cassian said, glancing at Nesta. “If I end my life defending those who need it most, then I will consider it a death well spent.” Lord Devlon, for once, nodded his approval. I wondered if Cassian noticed it—if he cared. His face revealed nothing, not as his focus remained wholly on my sister.

“So will I,” Tarquin said.

Kallias looked to Viviane, who was smiling sadly up at him. I could see the regret there—for the time they had lost. But Kallias said, “We’ll need to leave by tomorrow if we are to stand a chance at staunching the slaughter.”

“Sooner than that,” Helion said, flashing a dazzling smile. “A few hours.” He jerked his chin at Rhys. “You realize humans will be slaughtered before we can get there.”

“Not if we can act faster,” I said, rotating my shoulder. Still stiff and sore, but healing fast.

They all raised their brows.

“Tonight,” I said. “We winnow—those of us who can. To human homes—towns. And we winnow out as many of them as we can before dawn.”

“And where will we put them?” Helion demanded.

“Velaris.”

“Too far,” Rhys murmured, scanning the map before us. “To do all that winnowing.”

Tarquin tapped a finger on the map—on his territory. “Then bring them to Adriata. I will send Cresseida back—let her oversee them.”

“We’ll need all the strength we have to fight Hybern,” Kallias said carefully. “Wasting it on winnowing humans—”

“It is no waste,” I said. “One life may change the world. Where would you all be if someone had deemed saving my life to be a waste of time?” I pointed to Rhys. “If he had deemed saving my life Under the Mountain a waste of time? Even if it’s only twenty families, or ten … They are not a waste. Not to me—or to you.”

Viviane was giving her mate a sharp, reproachful glare, and Kallias had the good sense to mumble an apology.

Then Amren said from behind us, striding through the tent flaps,

“I hope you all voted to face Hybern in battle.”

Rhys arched a brow. “We did. Why?”

Amren set the Book upon the table with a thump. “Because we will need it as a distraction.” She smiled grimly at me. “We need to get to the Cauldron, girl. All of us.”

And I knew she didn’t mean the High Lords.

But rather the four of us—who had been Made. Me, Amren …

and my sisters.

“You found another way to stop it?” Tarquin asked.

Amren’s sharp chin bobbed in a nod. “Even better. I found a way to stop his entire army.”

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67

We’d need access to the Cauldron—be able to touch it. Together.

Alone, it had nearly killed me. But split amongst others who were Made … We could withstand its lethal power.

If we got it under our control, in one fell swoop we could harness its might to bind the king and his army. And wipe them off the earth.

Amren had found the spell to do it. Right where the Suriel had claimed it’d be encoded in the Book. Rather than nullify the Cauldron’s powers … we would nullify the person controlling it.

And his entire host.

But we had to attain the Cauldron first. And with the two armies poised to fight …

We would move only when the carnage was at its peak. When Hybern might be distracted in the chaos. Unless he planned to wield that Cauldron on the killing field.

Which was a high possibility.

There was no chance we’d infiltrate that army camp again—not after we’d stolen Elain. So we would have to wait until we walked into the trap he’d set for us. Wait until we took up disadvantageous positions on that battlefield he’d selected, and arrive exhausted from the battles before it, the trek there.

Exhausted from winnowing those human families out of his path.

Which we did. That night, any of us who could winnow …

I went to my old village with Rhysand.

I went to the houses where I had once left gold as a mortal woman.

At first, they did not recognize me.

Then they realized what I was.

Rhys held their minds gently, soothing them, as I explained.

What had happened to me, what was coming. What we needed to do.

They did not have time to pack more than a few things. And they were all trembling as we swept them across the world, to the warmth of a lush forest just outside Adriata, Cresseida already waiting with food and a small army of servants to help and organize.

The second family did not believe us. Thought it was some faerie trick. Rhys tried to hold their minds, but their panic was too deep, their hatred too tangible.

They wanted to stay.

Rhys didn’t give them a choice after that. He winnowed their entire family, all of them screaming. They were still shrieking when we left them in that forest, more humans around them, our companions winnowing in new arrivals for Cresseida to document and soothe.

So we continued. House to house. Family to family. Anyone in Hybern’s path.

All night. Every High Lord in our army, any commander or noble with the gift and strength.

Until we were panting. Until there was a small city of humans huddled together in that summer-ripe forest. Until even Rhys’s strength flagged and he could barely winnow back to our tent.

He passed out before his head had hit the pillow, his wings splayed across the bed.

Too much strain, too much relying on his power.

I watched him sleep, counting his breaths.

We knew—all of us did. We knew that we wouldn’t walk away from that battlefield.

Maybe it would inspire others to fight, but … We knew. My mate, my family … they would fight, buy us time with their lives while Amren and my sisters and I tried to stop that Cauldron.

Some would go down before we could reach it.

And they were willing to do it. If they were afraid, none of them let on.

I brushed Rhys’s sweat-damp hair back from his brow.

I knew he’d give everything before any of us could offer it.

Knew he’d try.

It was as much a part of him as his limbs, this need to sacrifice, to protect. But I wouldn’t let him do it—not without trying myself.

Amren had not mentioned Bryaxis in our talks earlier. Had seemed to have forgotten it. But we still had a battle to wage tomorrow. And if Bryaxis could buy my friends, could buy Rhys, any extra time while I hunted down that Cauldron … If it could buy them the slimmest shot of survival … Then the Bone Carver could as well.

I didn’t care about the cost. Or the risk. Not as I looked at my sleeping mate, exhaustion lining his face.

He had given enough. And if this broke me, drove me mad, ripped me apart … All Amren would need was my presence, my body, tomorrow with the Cauldron. Anything else … if it was what I had to give, my own cost to buy them any sliver of survival … I would gladly pay it. Face it.

So I rallied the dregs of my power and winnowed away—

winnowed north.

To the Court of Nightmares.

There was a winding stair, deep within the mountain. It led to only one place: a chamber near the uppermost peak. I had learned as much from my research.

I stood at the base of that stairwell, peering up into the impenetrable gloom, my breath clouding in front of me.

A thousand stairs. That was how many steps stood between me and the Ouroboros. The Mirror of Beginnings and Endings.

Only you can decide what breaks you, Cursebreaker. Only you.

I kindled a ball of faelight over my head and began my ascent.

CHAPTER

68

I did not expect the snow.

Or the moonlight.

The chamber must have lain beneath the palace of moonstone

—shafts in the rough rock leading outside, welcoming in snowdrifts and moonlight.

I gritted my teeth against the bitter cold, the wind howling through the cracks like wolves raging along the mountainside beyond.

The snow glittered over the walls and floor, slithering over my boots with the wind gusts. Moonlight peered in, bright enough that I vanished my ball of faelight, bathing the entire chamber in blues and silvers.

And there, against the far wall of the chamber, snow crusting its surface, its bronze casing …

The Ouroboros.

It was a massive, round disc—as tall as I was. Taller. And the metal around it had been fashioned after a massive serpent, the mirror held within its coils as it devoured its own tail.

Ending and beginning.

From across the room, with the snow … I could not see it. What lay within.

I forced myself to take a step forward. Another.

The mirror itself was black as night—yet … wholly clear.

I watched myself approach. Watched the arm I had upraised against the wind and snow, the pinched expression on my face.

The exhaustion.

I stopped three feet away. I did not dare touch it.

It only showed me myself.

Nothing.

I scanned the mirror for any signs of … something to push or touch with my magic. But there was only the devouring head of the serpent, its maw open wide, frost sparkling on its fangs.

I shuddered against the cold, rubbing my arms. My reflection did the same.

“Hello?” I whispered.

There was nothing.

My hands burned with cold.

Up close, the surface of the Ouroboros was like a gray, calm sea. Undisturbed. Sleeping.

But in its upper corner—movement.

No—not movement in the mirror.

Behind me.

I was not alone.

Crawling down the snow-kissed wall, a massive beast of claws and scales and fur and shredding teeth inched toward the floor.

Toward me.

I kept my breathing steady. Did not let it scent a tendril of my fear—whatever it was. Some guardian of this place, some creature that had crawled in through the cracks—

Its enormous paws were near-silent on the floor, the fur on them a blend of black and gold. Not a beast designed to hunt in these mountains. Certainly not with the ridge of dark scales down its back. And the large, shining eyes— I didn’t have time to remark on those blue-gray eyes as the beast pounced.

I whirled, Illyrian dagger in my freezing hand, ducking low and aiming up—for the heart.

But no impact came. Only snow, and cold, and wind.

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There was nothing before me. Behind me.

No paw prints in the snow.

I whirled to the mirror.

Where I had been standing … that beast now sat, scaled tail idly swishing through the snow.

Watching me.

No—not watching.

Gazing back at me. My reflection.

Of what lurked beneath my skin.

My knife clattered to the stones and snow. And I looked into the mirror.

The Bone Carver was sitting against the wall as I entered his cell.

“No escort this time?”

I only stared at him—that boy. My son.

And for once, the Carver seemed to go very still and quiet.

He whispered, “You retrieved it.”

I looked toward a corner of his cell. The Ouroboros appeared, snow and ice still crusting it. Mine to summon, wherever and whenever I wished.

“How.”

Words were still foreign, strange things.

This body that I had returned to … it was strange, too.

My tongue was dry as paper as I said, “I looked.”

“What did you see?” The Carver got to his feet.

I sank a little further back into my body. Just enough to smile slightly. “That is none of your concern.” For the mirror … it had shown me. So many things.

I did not know how long had passed. Time—it had been different inside the mirror.

But even a few hours might have been too many—

I pointed to the door. “You have your mirror. Now uphold your end. Battle awaits.”

The Bone Carver glanced between me and the mirror. And he smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

And the way he said it … I was wrung dry, my soul new and trembling, and yet I asked, “What do you mean?”

The Carver simply straightened his clothes. “I have little need for that thing,” he said, gesturing to the mirror. “But you did.”

I blinked slowly.

“I wanted to see if you were worth helping,” the Carver went on.

“It’s a rare person to face who they truly are and not run from it—

not be broken by it. That’s what the Ouroboros shows all who look into it: who they are, every despicable and unholy inch. Some gaze upon it and don’t even realize that the horror they’re seeing is them—even as the terror of it drives them mad. Some swagger in and are shattered by the small, sorry creature they find instead.

But you … Yes, rare indeed. I could risk leaving here for nothing less.”

Rage—blistering rage started to fill in the holes left by what I’d beheld in that mirror. “You wanted to see if I was worthy?” That innocent people were worthy of being helped.

A nod. “I did. And you are. And now I shall help you.”

I debated slamming that cell door in his face.

But I only said quietly, “Good.” I walked over to him. And I was not afraid as I grabbed the Bone Carver’s cold hand. “Then let’s begin.”

CHAPTER

69

Dawn broke, gilding the low-lying mists snaking over the plains of the mortal land.

Hybern had razed everything from the Spring Court down to the few miles before the sea.

Including my village.

There was nothing left but smoking cinders and crumbled stone as we marched past.

And my father’s estate … One-third of the house remained standing, the rest wrecked. Windows shattered, walls cracked down to the foundation.

Elain’s garden was trampled, little more than a mud pit. That proud oak near the edge of the property—where Nesta had liked to stand in the shade and overlook our lands … It had been burned into a skeletal husk.

It was a personal attack. I knew it. We all did. The king had ordered our livestock killed. I’d gotten the dogs and horses out the night before—along with the servants and their families. But the riches, the personal touches … Looted or destroyed.

That Hybern had not lingered to decimate what was left standing of the house, Cassian told me, suggested he did not want us gaining too much on him. He’d establish his advantage— pick the right battlefield. We had no doubt that finding the empty villages along the way whetted the king’s rage. And there were

enough towns and villages that we had not reached in time that we hurried.

An easier feat in theory than in practice, with an army of our size and made up of so many differently trained soldiers, with so many leaders giving orders about what to do.

The Illyrians were testy—yanking at the leash, even under Lord Devlon’s strict command. Annoyed that we had to wait for the others, that we couldn’t just fly ahead and intercept Hybern, stop them before they could select the battlefield.

I watched Cassian lay into two different captains within the span of three hours—watched him reassign the grumbling soldiers to hauling carts and wagons of supplies, pulling some off the honor of being on the front lines. As soon as the others saw that he meant every word, every threat … the complaining ceased.

Keir and his Darkbringers watched Cassian, too—and were wise enough to keep any discontent off their tongues, their faces.

To keep marching, their dark armor growing muddier with every passing mile.

During the brief midday break in a large meadow, Nesta and I climbed inside one of the supply caravan’s covered wagons to change into Illyrian fighting leathers. When we emerged, Nesta even buckled a knife at her side. Cassian had insisted, yet he’d admitted that since she was untrained, she was just as likely to hurt herself as she was to hurt someone else.

Elain … She’d taken one look at us in the swaying grasses outside that wagon, the legs and assets on display, and turned crimson. Viviane stepped in, offering a Winter Court fashion that was far less scandalous: leather pants, but paired with a thigh-length blue surcoat, white fur trimming the collar. In the heat, it’d be miserable, but Elain was thankful enough that she didn’t complain when we again emerged from the covered wagon and found our companions waiting. She refused the knife Cassian handed her, though.

Went white as death at the sight of it.

Azriel, still limping, merely nudged aside Cassian and extended another option.

“This is Truth-Teller,” he told her softly. “I won’t be using it today

—so I want you to.”

His wings had healed—though long, thin scars now raked down them. Still not strong enough, Madja had warned him, to fly today.

The argument with Rhys this morning had been swift and brutal: Azriel insisted he could fly—fight with the legions, as they’d planned. Rhys refused. Cassian refused. Azriel threatened to slip into shadow and fight anyway. Rhys merely said that if he so much as tried, he’d chain Azriel to a tree.

And Azriel … It was only when Mor had entered the tent and begged him— begged him with tears in her eyes—that he relented. Agreed to be eyes and ears and nothing else.

And now, standing amongst the sighing meadow grasses in his Illyrian armor, all seven Siphons gleaming …

Elain’s eyes widened at the obsidian-hilted blade in Azriel’s scarred hand. The runes on the dark scabbard.

“It has never failed me once,” the shadowsinger said, the midday sun devoured by the dark blade. “Some people say it is magic and will always strike true.” He gently took her hand and pressed the hilt of the legendary blade into it. “It will serve you well.”

“I—I don’t know how to use it—”

“I’ll make sure you don’t have to,” I said, grass crunching as I stepped closer.

Elain weighed my words … and slowly closed her fingers around the blade.

Cassian gawked at Azriel, and I wondered how often Azriel had lent out that blade—

Never, Rhys said from where he finished buckling on his own weapons against the side of the wagon. I have never once seen Azriel let another person touch that knife.

Elain looked up at Azriel, their eyes meeting, his hand still lingering on the hilt of the blade.

I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife.

Paint that when we get home.

Busybody.

I peered over my shoulder to Rhys, who stepped up to our little circle in the grass. His face remained more haggard than usual, lines of strain bracketing his mouth. And I realized … I would not get that last night with him. Last night— that had been the final night. We’d spent it winnowing— Don’t think like that. Don’t go into this battle thinking you won’t walk off again. His gaze was sharp. Unyielding.

Breathing became difficult. This break is the last time we’ll all be here—talking.

For this final leg of the march we were about to embark on … It would take us right to the battlefield.

Rhys lifted a brow. Would you like to go into that wagon for a few minutes, then? It’s a little cramped between the weapons and supplies, but I can make it work.

The humor—as much for me as it was for him. I took his hand, realizing the others were talking quietly, Mor having sauntered over in full, dark armor, Amren … Amren was in Illyrian leathers, too. So small—they must have been built for a child.

Don’t tell her, but they were.

My lips tugged toward a smile. But Rhys stared at all of us, somehow assembled here in the sun-drenched open grasses without being given the order. Our family—our court. The Court of Dreams.

They all quieted.

Rhys looked them each in the eye, even my sisters, his hand brushing the back of my own.

“Do you want the inspiring talk or the bleak one?” he asked.

“We want the real one,” Amren said.

Rhys pushed his shoulders back, elegantly folding his wings behind him. “I believe everything happens for a reason. Whether it is decided by the Mother, or the Cauldron, or some sort of tapestry of Fate, I don’t know. I don’t really care. But I am grateful for it, whatever it is. Grateful that it brought you all into my life. If it hadn’t … I might have become as awful as that prick we’re going to face today. If I had not met an Illyrian warrior-in-training,” he said to Cassian, “I would not have known the true depths of strength, of resilience, of honor and loyalty.” Cassian’s eyes gleamed bright. Rhys said to Azriel, “If I had not met a shadowsinger, I would not have known that it is the family you make, not the one you are born into, that matters. I would not have known what it is to truly hope, even when the world tells you to despair.” Azriel bowed his head in thanks.

Mor was already crying when Rhys spoke to her. “If I had not met my cousin, I would never have learned that light can be found in even the darkest of hells. That kindness can thrive even amongst cruelty.” She wiped away her tears as she nodded.

I waited for Amren to offer a retort. But she was only waiting.

Rhys bowed his head to her. “If I had not met a tiny monster who hoards jewels more fiercely than a firedrake …” A quiet laugh from all of us at that. Rhys smiled softly. “My own power would have consumed me long ago.”

Rhys squeezed my hand as he looked to me at last. “And if I had not met my mate …” His words failed him as silver lined his eyes.

He said down the bond, I would have waited five hundred more years for you. A thousand years. And if this was all the time we were allowed to have … The wait was worth it.

He wiped away the tears sliding down my face. “I believe that everything happened, exactly the way it had to … so I could find you.” He kissed another tear away.

And then he said to my sisters, “We have not known each other for long. But I have to believe that you were brought here, into our family, for a reason, too. And maybe today we’ll find out why.”

Image 85

He surveyed them all again—and held out his hand to Cassian.

Cassian took it, and held out his other for Mor. Then Mor extended her other to Azriel. Azriel to Amren. Amren to Nesta. Nesta to Elain. And Elain to me. Until we were all linked, all bound together.

Rhys said, “We will walk onto that field and only accept Death when it comes to haul us away to the Otherworld. We will fight for life, for survival, for our futures. But if it is decided by that tapestry of Fate or the Cauldron or the Mother that we do not walk off that field today …” His chin lifted. “The great joy and honor of my life has been to know you. To call you my family. And I am grateful— more than I can possibly say—that I was given this time with you all.”

“We are grateful, Rhysand,” Amren said quietly. “More than you know.”

Rhys gave her a small smile as the others murmured their agreement.

He squeezed my hand again as he said, “Then let’s go make Hybern very un grateful to have known us, too.”

I could smell the sea long before we beheld the battlefield. Hybern had chosen well.

A vast, grassy plain stretched to the shore. A mile inland, he had planted his army.

It rippled away, a dark mass spreading to the eastern horizon.

Rocky foothills arose at his back—some of his army also stationed atop them. Indeed, even the plain seemed to slope upward to the east.

I lingered at Rhysand’s side atop a broad knoll overlooking the plain, my sisters, Azriel, and Amren close behind. At the distant front lines far ahead, Helion, resplendent in golden armor and a rippling red cape, gave the order to halt. Armies obeyed, shifting into the positions they’d sorted out.

The host we faced, though … they were waiting. Poised.

So many. I knew without counting that we were vastly outnumbered.

Cassian landed from the skies, stone-faced, all of his Siphons smoldering as he crossed the flat-topped knoll in a few steps.

“The prick took every inch of high ground and advantage he could find. If we want to rout them, we’ll have to chase them up into those hills. Which I have no doubt he’s already calculated. Likely set with all kinds of surprises.” In the distance, those naga-hounds began snarling and howling. With hunger.

Rhys only asked, “How long do you think we have?”

Cassian clenched his jaw, glancing at my sisters. Nesta was watching him keenly; Elain monitored the army from our minor elevation, face white with dread. “We have five High Lords, and there’s only one of him. You all could shield us for a while. But it might not be in our interest to drain every one of you like that. He’ll have shields, too—and the Cauldron. He’s been careful not to let us see the full extent of his power. I have no doubt we’re about to, though.”

“He’ll likely be using spells,” I said, remembering that he’d trained Amarantha.

“Make sure Helion is on alert,” Azriel offered, limping to Rhys’s side. “And Thesan.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Rhys said to Cassian.

Cassian sized up Hybern’s unending army, then our own. “Let’s say it goes badly. Shields shattered, disarray, he uses the Cauldron … A few hours.”

I closed my eyes. During that time, I’d have to get across the battlefield before us, find wherever he kept the Cauldron, and stop it.

“My shadows are hunting for it,” Azriel said to me, reading my face as I opened my eyes. His jaw clenched at the words. He was supposed to have been searching for it himself. He flared and settled his wings, as if testing them. “But the wards are strong—no doubt reinforced by the king after you shredded through his at the camp. You might have to go on foot. Wait until the slaughter starts getting sloppy.”

Cassian dipped his head and said to Amren, “You’ll know when.”

She nodded sharply, crossing her arms. I wondered if she’d said good-bye to Varian.

Cassian clapped Rhys on the shoulder. “On your command, I’ll get the Illyrians into the skies. We advance on your signal after that.”

Rhys nodded distantly, attention still fixed on that overwhelming army.

Cassian took a step away, but looked back at Nesta. Her face was hard as granite. He opened his mouth, but seemed to decide against whatever he was about to say. My sister said nothing as Cassian shot into the sky with a powerful thrust of his wings. Yet she tracked his flight until he was hardly more than a dark speck.

“I can fight on foot,” Azriel said to Rhys.

“No.” There was no arguing with that tone.

Azriel seemed like he was debating it, but Amren shook her head in warning and he backed down, shadows coiling at his fingers.

In silence, we watched our army settle into neat, solid lines.

Watched the Illyrians lift into the skies at whatever silent command Rhys sent to Cassian, forming mirror lines above. Siphons glinted with color, and shields locked into place, both magical and metal.

The ground itself shook with each step toward that demarcation line.

Rhys said into my mind, If Hybern has a lock on my power, he will sense me sneaking across the battlefield.

I knew what he was implying. You’re needed here. If we both disappear, he’ll know.

A pause. Are you afraid?

Are you?

His violet eyes caught mine. So few stars now shone within them. “Yes,” he breathed. Not for myself. For all of you.

Tarquin barked an order far ahead, and our unified army came to a halt, like some mighty beast pausing. Summer, Winter, Day, Dawn, and Night—each court’s forces clearly marked by the alterations in color and armor. In the faeries who fought alongside the High Fae, ethereal and deadly. A legion of Thesan’s Peregryns flapped into rank beside the Illyrians, their golden armor gleaming against the solid black of our own.

No sign of Beron or Eris—not a whisper of Autumn coming to assist us. Or Tamlin.

But Hybern’s army did not advance. They might as well have been statues. The stillness, I knew, was more to unnerve us.

“Magic first,” Amren was explaining to Nesta. “Both sides will try to bring down the shields around the armies.”

As if in answer, they did. My magic writhed in response to the High Lords unleashing their might—all but Rhysand.

He was saving his power for once the shields came down. I had no doubt Hybern himself was doing the same across the plain.

Shields faltered on either side. Some died. Not many, but a few.

Magic against magic, the earth shuddering, the grass between the armies withering and turning to ash.

“I forgot how boring this part is,” Amren muttered.

Rhys shot her a dry look. But he prowled to the edge of our little outlook, as if sensing the stalemate was soon to break. He’d deliver a mighty, devastating blow to the army the moment their shield buckled. A veritable tidal wave of night-kissed power. His fingers curled at his sides.

To my left, Azriel’s Siphons glowed—readying to unleash blasts to echo Rhysand’s. He might not be able to fight, but he would wield his power from here.

I came to Rhys’s side. Ahead, both shields were wobbling at last.

“I never got you a mating present,” I said.

Rhys monitored the battle ahead. His power rumbled beneath us, surging from the shadowy heart of the world.

Soon. A matter of moments. My heart thundered, sweat beading my brow—not just from the summer heat now thick across the field.

“I’ve been thinking and thinking,” I went on, “about what to get you.”

Slowly, so slowly, Rhys’s eyes slid to mine. Only a chasm of power lay within them—blotting out those stars.

I smiled at him, bathing in that power, and sent an image into his mind.

Of the column of my spine, now inked from my base to my nape with four phases of the moon. And a small star in the middle of them.

“But, I’ll admit,” I said as his eyes flared, “this mating gift is probably for both of us.”

Hybern’s shield came crashing down. My magic snapped from me, cleaving through the world. Revealing the glamour I’d had in place for hours.

Before our front line … A cloud of darkness appeared, writhing and whirling on itself.

“Mother above,” Azriel breathed. Right as a male figure appeared beside that swirling ebony smoke.

Both armies seemed to pause with surprise.

“You retrieved the Ouroboros,” Rhys whispered.

For standing before Hybern were the Bone Carver and the living nest of shadows that was Bryaxis, the former contained and freed in a Fae body by myself last night. Both bound to obey by the simple bargain now inked onto my spine. “I did.”

He scanned me from head to toe, the wind stirring his blue-black hair as he asked softly, “What did you see?”

Hybern was stirring, frantically assessing what and who now stood before them. The Carver had chosen the form of an Illyrian soldier in his prime. Bryaxis remained within the darkness roiling around it, the living tapestry it would use to reveal the nightmares of its victims.

“Myself,” I said at last. “I saw myself.”

It was, perhaps, the one thing I would never show him. Anyone.

How I had cowered and raged and wept. How I had vomited, and screamed, and clawed at the mirror. Slammed my fists into it. And then curled up, trembling at every horrific and cruel and selfish thing I’d beheld within that monster—within me. But I had kept watching. I did not turn from it.

And when my shaking stopped, I studied it. All of those wretched things. The pride and the hypocrisy and the shame. The rage and the cowardice and the hurt.

Then I began to see other things. More important things—more vital.

“And what I saw,” I said quietly to him as the Carver raised a hand. “I think—I think I loved it. Forgave it—me. All of it.” It was only in that moment when I knew—I’d understood what the Suriel had meant. Only I could allow the bad to break me. Only I could own it, embrace it. And when I’d learned that … the Ouroboros had yielded to me.

Rhys arched a brow, even as awe crept across his face. “You loved all of it—the good and the bad?”

I smiled a bit. “Especially the bad.” The two figures seemed to take a breath—a mighty inhale that had Bryaxis’s dark cloud contracting. Readying to spring. I inclined my head to my mate.

“Here’s to a long, happy mating, Rhys.”

“Seems like you beat me to it.”

“To what?”

With a wink, Rhys pointed toward Bryaxis and the Carver.

Another figure appeared.

The Carver stumbled back a step. And I knew—from the slim, female figure, the dark, flowing hair, the once-again beautiful face

… I knew who she was.

Stryga—the Weaver.

And atop the Weaver’s dark hair … A pale blue jewel glittered.

Ianthe’s jewel. A blood trophy as the Weaver smiled at her twin, gave him a mocking bow, and faced the host before them. The

Carver halted his slow retreat, stared at his sister for a long moment, then turned to the army once more.

“You’re not the only one who can offer bargains, you know,”

Rhys drawled with a wicked smile.

The Weaver. Rhys had gotten the Weaver to join us— “How?”

He angled his neck, revealing a small, curling tattoo behind his ear. “I sent Helion to bargain on my behalf—that was why he was in the Middle that day he found you. To offer to break the containment spell on the Weaver … in exchange for her services today.”

I blinked at my mate. Then grinned, not bothering to hide the savagery within it. “Hybern has no idea about the hell that’s about to rain down upon them, do they.”

“Here’s to family reunions,” was all Rhys said.

Then the Weaver, the Carver, and Bryaxis unleashed themselves upon Hybern.

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“You actually did it,” Amren murmured, gaping as the three immortals slammed into Hybern’s lines, and the screaming began.

Bodies fell before them; bodies were left in their wake—some mere husks encased in armor. Drained by the Carver and Stryga.

Some fled from what they beheld in Bryaxis—the face of their deepest fears.

Rhys was still smiling at me as he extended a hand toward Hybern’s army, now trying to adjust to the rampant havoc.

His fingers pointed.

Obsidian power erupted from him.

A massive chunk of Hybern’s army just …