“Why won’t they sign it?”
“Because those stupid human queens are stirring—their army still isn’t disbanded. The Queen of Vallahan even asked me what the point of a peace treaty would be when another war, this time against the humans, might redraw the territory lines far below the wall. I don’t think Vallahan is interested in peace. Or allying with us.”
“So Vallahan wants another war in order to add to their territory?” They’d already seized more than their fair share after the War five hundred years ago.
“They’re bored,” Mor said, frowning with distaste. “And the humans, despite those queens, are far weaker than we are. Pushing into human lands is low-hanging fruit. Montesere and Rask are likely thinking the same thing.”
Cassian groaned skyward. That had been the fear during the recent war: that those three territories across the sea might ally with Hybern. Had they, there would have been no chance at all of survival. Now, even with Hybern’s king dead, its people remained angry. An army might be raised again in Hybern. And if it united with Vallahan, if Montesere and Rask joined with the goal of claiming more territory from the humans … “You already told Rhys this.”
It wasn’t a question, but Mor nodded. “That’s why he’s asking you to look into what’s going on with the human queens. I’m taking a few days off before I head back to Vallahan—but Rhys needs to know where the human queens stand in all of this.”
“So you’re supposed to convince Vallahan not to start another war, and I’m supposed to convince the human queens not to do so, either?”
“You won’t get near the human queens,” Mor said frankly. “But from what I observed in Vallahan, I know they’re up to something. Planning something. We just can’t figure out what, or why the humans would be stupid enough to start a war they cannot win.”
“They’d need something in their arsenal that could grant them the advantage.”
“That’s what you have to find out.”
Cassian tapped his booted foot on the stones of the walkway. “No pressure.”
Mor drained her tea. “Playing courtier isn’t all nice clothes and fancy parties.”
He scowled. Long moments passed in amiable silence, though Cassian half-heard the wind whispering over the Sidra, the merry chatter of the people around them, the clink of silverware against plates. Content to let him think, Mor returned to her sunning.
Cassian straightened. “There’s one person who knows those queens inside and out. Who can offer some insight.”
Mor opened an eye, then slowly sat forward, hair falling around her like a rippling golden river. “Oh?”
“Vassa.” Cassian hadn’t dealt much with the ousted human queen—the only good one out of the surviving group, who had been betrayed by her fellow queens when they’d sold her to a sorcerer-lord who’d cursed her to be a firebird by day, woman by night. She’d been lucky: they’d given the other rebellious queen in their midst to the Attor. Who had then impaled her on a lamppost a few bridges away from where Cassian and Mor now sat.
Mor nodded. “She might be able to help.”
He leaned his arms on the table. “Lucien is living with Vassa. And Jurian. He’s supposed to be our emissary to the human lands. Let him deal with it.”
Mor took another bite from her pastry. “Lucien can’t be entirely trusted anymore.”
Cassian started. “What?”
“Even with Elain here, he’s become close with Jurian and Vassa. He’s voluntarily living with them these days, and not just as an emissary. As their friend.”
Cassian went over all he’d heard and observed from his encounters with Lucien since the war, trying to contemplate it like Rhys and Mor would. “He’s spent months helping them sort out the politics of who rules Prythian’s slice of the human lands,” Cassian said slowly. “So Lucien can’t be unbiased in reporting to us on Vassa.”
Mor nodded gravely. “Lucien might mean well, but any reports would be skewed—even if he isn’t aware of it—in their favor. We need someone outside of their little bubble to collect information and report.” She finished off her pastry. “Which would be you.”
Fine. That made sense. “Why haven’t we already contacted Vassa about this?”
Mor waved a hand, though her shadowed eyes belied her casual gesture. “Because we’re just now piecing it all together. But you should definitely speak with her, when you can. As soon as you can, actually.”
Cassian nodded. He didn’t dislike Vassa, though meeting her would also entail talking with Lucien and Jurian. The former he’d learned to live with, but the latter … It didn’t matter that it turned out that Jurian had been fighting on their side. That the human general who’d been Amarantha’s tortured prisoner for five centuries had played Hybern after being rebirthed by the Cauldron, and had helped Cassian and his family win the war. Cassian still didn’t like the man.
He rose, leaning to ruffle Mor’s shining hair. “I miss you these days.” She’d been away frequently lately, and each time she returned, a shadow he couldn’t place dimmed her eyes. “You know we’d warn you if Keir ever came here.” Her asshole of a father still hadn’t called in his favor with Rhys: to visit Velaris.
“Eris bought me time.” Her words were laced with acid.
Cassian had tried not to believe it, but he knew Eris had done it as a gesture of good faith. He’d invited Rhysand into his mind to see exactly why he’d convinced Keir to indefinitely delay his visit to Velaris. Only Eris had that sort of sway with the power-hungry Keir, and whatever Eris had offered Keir in exchange for not coming here was still a mystery. At least to Cassian. Rhys probably knew. From Mor’s pale face, he wondered if she knew, too. Eris must have sacrificed something big to spare Mor from her father’s visit, which would have likely been timed for a moment that would maximize tormenting her.
“It doesn’t matter to me.” Mor waved off the conversation with a flip of her hand. He could tell something else was eating at her. But she’d let him in when she was ready.
Cassian walked around the table and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Get some rest.” He shot skyward before she could answer.
Nesta woke to pure darkness.
Darkness that she had not witnessed in years now. Since that ramshackle cottage that had become a prison and a hell.
Jolting upright, hands clutching at her chest, she gasped for air. Had it been some fever dream on a winter’s night? She was still in that cottage, still starving and poor and desperate—
No. The air in the room was toasty, and she was the lone person in the bed, not clinging to her sisters for warmth, always squabbling over who got the coveted middle place in the bed on the coldest nights, or the edges on the hottest summer ones.
And though she’d become as bony as she’d been during those long winters … this body was new, too. Fae. Powerful. Or it had once been.
Scrubbing at her face, Nesta slid from the bed. The floors were warmed. Not the icy wooden planks in the cottage.
Padding to the window, she drew back the drapes and peered out at the darkened city below. Golden lights shone along the streets, dancing on the twining band of the Sidra. Beyond that, only starlight silvered the lowlands before the cold and empty sea.
A scan of the sky revealed nothing regarding how far off dawn might be, and a long moment of listening suggested the household remained asleep. All three of them who occupied it.
How long had she slept? They’d arrived by eleven in the morning, and she’d fallen asleep soon after that. She’d consumed absolutely nothing all day. Her stomach grumbled.
But she ignored it, leaning her brow against the cool glass of the window. She let the starlight gently brush her head, her face, her neck. Imagined it running its shimmering fingers down her cheek, as her mother had done for her and her alone.
My Nesta. Elain shall wed for love and beauty, but you, my cunning little queen … You shall wed for conquest.
Her mother would thrash in her grave to know that, ye
ars later, her Nesta had come dangerously close to marrying a weak-willed woodcutter’s son who had sat idly by while his father beat his mother. Who had put his hands on her when she called things off between them. Who had then attempted to take what she hadn’t offered.
Nesta had tried to forget Tomas. She often found herself wishing the Cauldron had ripped those memories away just as it had her humanity, but his face sometimes sullied her dreams. Her waking thoughts. Sometimes, she could still feel his rough hands pawing at her, bruising her. Sometimes, the coppery tang of his blood still coated her tongue.
Pulling back from the window, Nesta studied those distant stars again. Half-wondered if they might speak.
My Nesta, her mother had always called her, even on her deathbed, so wasted and pale from typhus. My little queen.
Nesta had once delighted in the title. Had done her best to fulfill its promise, indulging in a dazzling life that had melted away as soon as the debtors swept in and all her so-called friends had revealed themselves to be nothing more than envious cowards wearing smiling masks. Not one of them had offered to help save the Archeron family from poverty.
They had thrown them all, mere children and a crumbling man, to the wolves.
So Nesta had become a wolf. Armed herself with invisible teeth and claws, and learned to strike faster, deeper, more lethally. Had relished it. But when the time came to put away the wolf, she’d found it had devoured her, too.
The stars flickered above the city, as if blinking their agreement.
Nesta curled her hands into fists and climbed back into bed.
Cauldron damn him, maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to bring her here.
Cassian lay awake in his behemoth of a bed—large enough for three Illyrian warriors to sleep side by side, wings and all. Little in the room itself had changed in the past five hundred years. Mor occasionally groused about wanting to redecorate the House of Wind, but he liked this room how it was.
He’d awoken at the sound of a door shutting and been instantly alert, heart hammering as he pulled free the knife he kept on the nightstand. Two more were hidden under his mattress, another set above the doorway, and two swords lay beneath the bed and in a dresser drawer, respectively. That was just his collection. The Mother knew what Az had stored in his own room.
He supposed that between him, Az, Mor, and Rhys, in the five centuries they’d used the House of Wind, they had filled it with enough weapons to arm a small legion. They’d hidden and stashed and forgotten about so many of them that there was always a good chance of sitting on a couch and being poked in the ass by something. And a good chance that most of the weapons were now little more than rust in their sheaths.
But the ones in this bedroom, those he kept oiled and clean. Ready.
The knife gleamed in the starlight, his Siphons fluttering with red light as his power scanned the hall beyond the door.
But no threat emerged, no enemy breaching the new wards. Hybern’s soldiers had broken through more than a year ago, nearly getting their hands on Feyre and Nesta in the library. He hadn’t forgotten it—that terror on Nesta’s face as she’d raced for him, arms outstretched.
But the sound in the hall … Azriel, he’d realized a heartbeat later.
That he’d heard the door at all told him Az wanted him aware of his return. Hadn’t wanted to talk, but had wanted Cassian to know that he was around.
Which had left Cassian here, staring at the ceiling, his Siphons slumbering once more and knife again sheathed and set on the nightstand. From the stars’ position, he knew it was past three—dawn was still far off. He should get some sleep. Tomorrow would be hard enough.
As if his silent plea had gone out into the world, a smooth male voice purred into his mind. Why are you up so late?
Cassian scanned the sky beyond the wall of windows, as if he’d see Rhys flying there. I have the same question for you.
Rhys chuckled. I told you: I had some apologizing to do with my mate. A long, wicked pause. We’re taking a break.
Cassian laughed. Let the poor female sleep.
She was the one who initiated this round. Pure male satisfaction edged every word. You still didn’t answer my question.
Why are you snooping on me at this hour?
I wanted to make sure all was well. It’s not my fault you were already up.
Cassian let out a soft groan. It’s fine. Nesta went to sleep right after we got here and stayed in bed. I’m assuming she’s still asleep.
You got there before eleven.
I know.
It’s three fifteen in the morning.
I know.
The silence was pointed enough that Cassian added, Don’t butt in.
I wouldn’t dream of it.
Cassian didn’t particularly want to have this conversation, not at three in the morning and certainly not twice in one day. I’ll check in tomorrow night with an update on the first lesson.
Rhys’s pause was again too pointed to ignore. But his brother said, Mor will bring you up to Windhaven. Good night, Cass.
The dark presence in his mind faded, leaving him hollow and chilled.
Tomorrow would be a battlefield unlike any other he’d walked onto.
Cassian wondered how much of him would be left intact by the end of it.
CHAPTER
5
“If you don’t eat that, you’re going to regret it in about thirty minutes.”
Seated at the long table in the House of Wind’s dining room, Nesta looked up from the plate of scrambled eggs and steaming bowl of porridge. Sleep still weighed her bones, sharpening her temper as she said, “I’m not eating this.”
Cassian dug into his own portion—nearly double what lay before her. “It’s either that or nothing.”
Nesta kept perfectly still in her chair, keenly aware of every movement in the fighting leathers she’d donned. She’d forgotten how it felt to wear pants—the nakedness of having her thighs and ass on display.
Mercifully, Cassian had been too busy reading some report to see her slink in and slide into her seat. She glanced toward the doorway, hoping a servant might appear. “I’ll eat toast.”
“You’ll burn through that in ten minutes and be tired.” Cassian nodded toward the porridge. “Put some milk in it if you need to make it more palatable.” He added before she could demand it, “There’s no sugar.”
She clenched the spoon. “As punishment?”
“Again, it’ll give you energy for a short blast, and then make you crash.” He shoveled eggs into his mouth. “You need to keep your energy level constant throughout the day—foods full of sugar or flimsy bread give you a temporary high. Lean meats, whole grains, and fruits and vegetables keep you relatively steady and full.”
She drummed her nails on the smooth table. She’d sat here several times before with the members of Rhysand’s court. Today, with only the two of them, it felt obscenely large. “Are there any other areas of my daily life that you’re going to be presiding over?”
He shrugged, not pausing his eating. “Don’t give me a reason to add any more to the list.”
Arrogant asshole.
Cassian nodded toward the food again. “Eat.”
She shoved the spoon into the bowl but didn’t lift it.
“Have it your way, then.” He finished his porridge and returned to the eggs.
“How long will today’s session be?” The dawn had revealed clear skies, though she knew the Illyrian Mountains had their own weather. Might already be crusted in the first snows.
“As I said yesterday: the lesson is two hours. Right until lunch.” He set his bowl on his plate, piling the silverware within. They vanished a heartbeat later, taken by the magic of the House. “Which will be the next time we eat.” He glanced pointedly at her food.
Nesta leaned back in her chair. “One: I’m not participating in this lesson. Two: I’m not hungry.”
His hazel eyes guttered. “Not eating won’t bring your father back.”
“That has nothing to do with this,” she hissed. “Nothing.”
He braced his forearms on the table. “We’re going to cut the bullshit. You think I haven’t gone through what you’re dealing with? You think I haven’t seen and done and felt all that before? And seen those I love deal with it, too? You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last. What happened to your father was terrible, Nesta, but—”
She shot to her feet. “You don’t know anything.” She couldn’t stop the shaking that overtook her. From rage or something else, she didn’t know. She balled her hands into fists. “Keep your fucking opinions to yourself.”
He blinked at the profanity, at what she guessed was the white-hot rage crinkling her face. And then he said, “Who taught you to curse?”
She squeezed her fists harder. “You lot. You have the filthiest mouths I’ve ever heard.”
Cassian’s eyes narrowed with amusement, but his mouth remained a thin line. “I’ll keep my fucking opinions to myself if you eat.”
She threw every bit of venom she could muster into her gaze.
He only waited. Unmovable as the mountain into which the House had been built.
Nesta sat down, grabbed the bowl of porridge, shoved a lumpy spoonful into her mouth, and nearly gagged at the taste. But she forced it down. Then another spoonful. Another. Until the bowl was clean and she started on the eggs.
Cassian monitored each bite.
And when there was nothing left, she scooped up her plate and bowl and held his stare as she dumped her dishes atop each other, the sound of the rattling silverware filling the room.
She again rose, stalking toward him. The doorway beyond him. He stood as well.
Nesta could have sworn he wasn’t breathing as she passed, close enough that a shift of her elbow would have had it brushing his stomach. She said sweetly, “I look forward to your silence.”
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