A Court of Silver Flames

by Sarah J. Maas

  “Not at all.”

  She loosed a long breath. “I don’t think any traps were triggered.”

  He nodded. “Be quick.”

  Their gazes held, and Nesta turned from the raw worry in his eyes as she pulled her hand from his and entered the chamber.

  The wards lay heavy against Nesta’s skin with each step across the stone floor to the shining Harp.

  “It looks newly polished,” she observed to Cassian, who watched from the archway. “How is that possible?”

  “It exists outside the bindings of time, just as the Cauldron does.”

  Nesta studied the carvings in the floor. They all seemed to spiral toward one point. “I think these are stars,” she breathed. “Constellations.” And like a golden sun, the Harp lay at the center of the system.

  “This is the Night Court,” Cassian said drily.

  But it felt … different from Night Court magic somehow. Nesta paused before the Harp, the wards pressing into her skin as she surveyed its golden frame and silver strings. The Harp sat atop a large rendering of an eight-pointed star. Its cardinal points stretched longer than the other four, with the Harp situated directly in the heart of the star.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood. She could have sworn the blood in her body reversed course.

  She had the creeping feeling she’d been brought here.

  Not by the Cauldron or the Mother or the Harp. By something vaster. Something that stretched into the stars carved all around them.

  Its cool, light hands guided her wrists as she picked up the Harp.

  Her fingers brushed the icy metal. The Harp hummed against her skin, as if it still held its final note, from the last time it had been used—

  Fae screamed, pounding on stone that hadn’t been there a moment before, pleading for their children’s sakes, begging to be let out let out let out—

  Nesta had the sensation of falling, tumbling through air and stars and time—

  It was a trap, and our people were too blind to see it—

  Eons and stars and darkness plunged around her—

  The Fae clawed at stone, tearing their nails on rock where there had once been a door. But the way back was now forever sealed, and they begged as they tried to pass their children through the solid wall, if only their children could be spared—

  Light flashed, blinding. When it cleared, she stood in a white-stoned palace.

  A great hall, where five thrones graced a dais. The sixth throne, in the center, was occupied by a pointy-eared crone. A golden, spiked crown rested on her head, blazing like the hate in her black eyes.

  The Fae crone stiffened, blue velvet robes shifting with the movement. Her eyes, clear despite her wrinkled face, sharpened. Right on Nesta.

  “You have the Harp,” the queen said, voice like crinkling paper. And Nesta knew who she stood frozen before, what crown lay on her thin, white hair. Briallyn’s gnarled fingers curled on the arms of her throne, and her gaze narrowed. The queen smiled, revealing a mouth of half-rotted teeth.

  Nesta backed up a step—or tried to. She couldn’t move.

  Briallyn’s horrible smile deepened and she said conversationally, “My spies have told me who your friends are. The half-breed and the broken Illyrian. Such lovely girls.”

  Nesta’s blood churned, and she knew her eyes were blazing with her power as she snarled, “You come near them and I’ll rip out your throat. I will hunt you down and gut you.”

  Briallyn tutted. “Such bonds are foolish. As foolish as you still holding on to the Harp, which sings answers to all my questions. I know where you are, Nesta Archeron—”

  Darkness erupted.

  Unmoving, solid darkness, slamming into Nesta as hard as a wall.

  Screams still echoed.

  No—no, that was a male bellowing her name.

  And she had not slammed into the darkness. She’d collided with the stone, and now lay upon the floor, the Harp in her hands.

  “NESTA!” Red light flared, washing like a bloody tide upon the stones, her face, the ceiling. But Cassian’s Siphons could not break through the wards. He could not reach her.

  Nesta clutched the Harp to her chest, the last of its reverberations echoing through her. She had to let go. Somehow, in touching the Harp while Briallyn was wearing the Crown, she had opened a pathway between their minds, their eyes. She could see Briallyn, and Briallyn could see her, could sense where she was. She had to let go—

  She couldn’t do more than twitch her fingertips as invisible, oppressive weight bore into her, like it’d flatten her into dust upon the ground. Let go, she silently bade it, gritting her teeth, fingers brushing over the nearest string. Free me, you blasted thing.

  A beautiful, haughty voice answered, full of music so lovely it broke her heart to hear it. I do not appreciate your tone.

  With that the Harp pushed into her harder, and Nesta roared silently.

  Her nail scraped over the string again. Let me go!

  Shall I open a door for you, then? Release that which is caught?

  Yes! Damn you, yes!

  It has been a long while, sister, since I played. I shall need time to remember the right combinations …

  Don’t play games. Nesta chilled at the word it had used. Sister. Like she and this thing were one and the same.

  The small strings are for games—light movement and leaping—but the longer, the final ones … Such deep wonders and horrors we could strum into being. Such great and monstrous magic I wrought with my last minstrel. Shall I show you?

  No. Just open up these wards.

  As you wish. Pluck the first string, then.

  Nesta didn’t hesitate as her fingertip curled over the first string, grasping and then releasing it. A musical laugh filled her mind, but the weight lifted. Vanished.

  Nesta heaved a breath, shoving upward, and found herself free to move as she wished. The Harp lay still in her hands, dormant. The very air seemed lighter. Looser. Like opening another doorway had shut the one to Briallyn.

  “NESTA!” Cassian thundered from across the chamber.

  “I’m fine,” she called out, shaking off her lingering tremors. “But I think someone very wicked used this last.” She stared into the darkness above. “I think they used it to … to trap their enemies and their enemies’ children into the stone itself.” Was that what had been happening to her just now? The Harp had been pushing her into the rock, fusing her soul with it? She shivered.

  Cassian demanded, “Are you hurt? What happened?”

  She groaned, rising slowly. “No. I … I touched it and it held a memory. A bad one.” One she’d never forget. “And we need to leave. It showed me Briallyn, wearing the Crown. She saw me here.” The words tumbled out as Nesta waded back through the ward-heavy cavern, feeling that center spot, the star at its heart, like a physical presence at her back. Those vast, light hands seemed to pull at her, trying to make her return, but she ignored them, explaining to Cassian what she’d heard from the Harp, and what she’d seen in the vision with Briallyn.

  Cassian’s breathing remained uneven. He didn’t relax one muscle until she stepped back into the tunnel hallway. Until his hand was again around hers. He didn’t even bother to look at the Harp, or comment on Briallyn. He only surveyed her for any sign of harm.

  It was as intimate as any look he’d ever given her. Even when he was buried deep inside her, moving in her, his gaze had never been so openly raw.

  She tucked the Harp into her side and couldn’t stop the hand she lifted to his cheek. “I’m fine.”

  He pressed a kiss into the heart of her palm. “I don’t know why I doubted you.” He pulled from her touch. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Dark promise laced the words—and she knew what they’d be doing as soon as they dumped the Harp off to become Rhysand’s problem.

  Her cheeks heated, something like pleasure going through her. That he would pick her, them—that he wanted the reassurance of her body that much.

  Sh
e interlaced her fingers through his, squeezing as tightly as their hands could be pressed together. He squeezed back, and tugged her down the passageway, away from the site of pain and long-forgotten memory. The sword bounced against her thigh, and she said, breaking the silence, “I named it Ataraxia.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “That sword? What’s it mean?”

  “It’s from the Old Language. I found it in a book the other day in the library. I liked the sound of it.”

  “Ataraxia,” he said as though he were trying out the weapon itself. “I like it.”

  “I’m so glad you approve.”

  “It’s better than Killer or Silver Majesty,” he threw back. His grin was brighter than the glowing Siphon atop his left hand. Her pulse raced. “Ataraxia,” he said again, and Nesta could have sworn the blade hanging from her belt hummed in answer. As if it liked the sound of his voice as much as she did.

  They neared the end of the tunnel, but Nesta paused him with a tug on his hand. “What?” he asked, scanning the cavern. But she rose onto her toes and kissed him lightly. He blinked with almost comic shock as she pulled away. “What was that for?”

  Nesta shrugged, her cheeks heating. “Gwyn and Emerie are my friends,” she said quietly. She tucked away her horror that Briallyn had eyes on them. “But …” She swallowed. “I think you might be, too, Cassian.”

  Cassian’s silence was palpable, and she cursed herself for laying bare that wish, that realization. Wished she could wipe away the words, the stupidity—

  “I’ve always been your friend, Nesta,” he said hoarsely. “Always.”

  She couldn’t bear to see what was in his eyes. “I know.”

  Cassian brushed his mouth over her temple, and they exited the tunnel at last, entering the main path of the Prison, its heavy gloom.

  Nesta whispered, finally daring to say it, “And I’ve always—”

  Cassian threw her behind him so fast the rest of the words died in her throat.

  “Run.” His heartbeat—his pure terror—filled the air. “Nesta, run.”

  She whirled toward what he faced, his Illyrian blade gleaming ruby in the light of his Siphon. As if a blade could do anything.

  The door to Lanthys’s cell lay open.

  CHAPTER

  54

  Cassian beheld the open door to Lanthys’s cell and knew two things.

  The first, and most obvious, was that he was about to die.

  The second was that he would do anything in the world to prevent Nesta from meeting the same fate.

  The second clarified his mind, cooled and sharpened his fear into another weapon. By the time the voice slithered from the darkness around them, he was ready.

  “I wondered when you and I would meet again, Lord of Bastards.”

  Cassian had never, not once, forgotten the timbre and iciness of that voice, how it made his very blood bristle with hoarfrost. But Cassian answered, “All these centuries in here and you haven’t invented a more creative name for me?”

  Lanthys’s laugh twined around them like a snake. Cassian gripped Nesta’s hand, though his order to run still hung between them. It was too late for running. At least for him. All that remained was buying her enough time to escape.

  “You thought yourself so clever with the ash mirror,” Lanthys seethed, voice echoing from all around them. The light of Cassian’s left Siphon revealed only red-washed, misty darkness. “Thought you could best me.” Another laugh. “I am immortal, boy. A true immortal, as you might never hope to be. Two centuries in here is nothing. I knew I’d only need to bide my time before I found a way to escape.”

  “You found a way?” Cassian drawled to the mist that was Lanthys. “It seems like someone helped you out.” He clicked his tongue.

  He just had to wait—wait until the attack came. Then Nesta could run. She was rigid beside him, utterly frozen. He nudged her with a foot, trying to knock her from her stupor. He needed her primed to run, not rooted to the spot like a deer.

  “The door opened of my will alone,” Lanthys purred.

  “Liar. Someone opened it for you.”

  Lanthys’s mist thickened, rumbling with ire.

  Nesta swallowed audibly, and Cassian knew. When she’d ordered the Harp to let her go … The Harp had also released Lanthys. Just open up these wards, she’d instructed it. So it had: the wards on her, and the wards nearby—on Lanthys’s cell. It had said it wanted to play. And here it was: playing with their lives.

  What if the Harp had extended its reach beyond Lanthys’s door? If every single cell door here was open …

  Fuck.

  But Cassian said to the monster he feared above all others, “So you plan to swirl around me like a rain cloud? What of that handsome form I saw in the mirror?”

  “Is that what your companion prefers?” Lanthys whispered from too close—far too close. Nesta cringed away. Lanthys inhaled. “What are you?”

  “A witch,” she breathed. “From Oorid’s dark heart.”

  “There is a name I have not heard in a long while.” Lanthys’s voice sounded mere feet from Nesta. Cassian gritted his teeth. He needed the monster gathered on the other side of her—so the path upward was clear. Had to draw Lanthys over toward him. “But you do not smell of Oorid’s heaviness, its despair.” An inhale, still behind them, blocking the way out. “Your scent …” He sighed. “A pity you’ve marred such a scent with Cassian’s stink. I can barely distinguish anything on you besides his essence.”

  That alone, Cassian realized, kept Lanthys from realizing what she was. Being interested, as the Bone Carver had been. But it revealed another dangerous truth: where to strike first.

  “What is it you are obscuring behind you?” Lanthys asked, and Nesta turned, as if tracking him, keeping the Harp hidden at her back. Lanthys chuckled, though. “Ah. I see it now. Long have I wondered who would come to claim it. I could hear its music, you know. Its final note, like an echo in the stone. I was surprised to find it down here, hidden beneath the Prison, after all that time.”

  The mist swirled and Lanthys drawled, “Such exquisite music it makes. What wonder it spins. Everything pays fealty to that Harp: seasons, kingdoms, the order of time and worlds. These are of no consequence to it. And its last string …” He laughed. “Even Death bows to that string.”

  Nesta swallowed again. Cassian squeezed her hand tighter and said casually, “You true immortals are all the same: arrogant windbags who love to hear yourselves talk.”

  “And you faeries are all blind to your own selves.” Lanthys crooned, circling again, and Cassian readied his blade. “Based upon scent alone, I would say that you two are—”

  Cassian released Nesta’s hand and lunged forward, spearing his blade into the mist before Lanthys could say one more damning word.

  Lanthys screamed in rage as Cassian’s Siphons flared, and Cassian roared, “RUN!” before he struck again. Lanthys retreated, and Cassian used the breath to free the Siphon from his left hand before chucking it to her, willing it to light. “Go!” he commanded as he tossed the stone to her. Red splashed across her fear-tight face as she caught his Siphon, but Cassian was already pivoting to Lanthys.

  The crunching, fading steps told him Nesta obeyed.

  Good.

  Lanthys gathered in the darkness, a cobra readying to strike.

  Cassian just prayed Nesta made it out of the gates before he died.

  Nesta ran from the voice that was hate and cruelty and hunger entwined. The voice that robbed her of joy, of warmth, of anything but primal, basic fear.

  Her thighs protested at the path’s steepness, but she sprinted up toward the gates, obeying Cassian’s command, the roaring from the warrior and the monster echoing off the stones. Red light flashed behind her. The doors of the Prison’s cells rattled. Beasts screamed behind them, as if realizing one of them had gotten out. Wanting out themselves.

  She clenched the Harp in one hand, Cassian’s Siphon blazing in the other. She had to reach
the gates. Then make it down the mountain. And then holler for Rhysand, and pray he had some sort of spell to sense his name on the wind. Then he’d have to race back up the mountain, down the path, and …

  Cassian might be dead by the time she reached the gates so high above. He might be dying now.

  A cold bolt shot through her heart.

  She had run from him. Left him.

  The Harp warmed in her hand, humming. The gold gleamed as if molten.

  We shall open doors and pathways; we shall move through space and eons together, it had sung during her unintentional scrying. Our music will free us of earthly rules and borders.

  Open doors … She had opened a door with it—to Lanthys’s cell. Opened a door through its own power pressing on her. But to move through space …

  The small strings are for games—light movement and leaping—but the longer, the final ones … Such deep wonders and horrors we could strum into being.

  Nesta counted the strings. Twenty-six. She’d touched the first, the smallest, to free herself from the Harp’s power, but what did the others do?

  Twenty-six, twenty-six, twenty-six …

  Gwyn’s voice floated from far away, recounting Merrill’s earlier research on dimensions. The possibility of twenty-six dimensions.

  We shall move through space and eons together … The small strings are for games—light movement and leaping … Could the Harp … Nesta’s breath caught in her throat. Could the Harp transplant her from one place to another? Not only open a door, but create one she might walk through?

  Free us of earthly rules and borders …

  She had to try it. For Cassian.

  Motion stirred in the gloom above, rushing steps headed her way. Someone had entered the Prison through the gates. Nesta angled Cassian’s Siphon toward the sound, bracing for whatever monster might come barreling down—

  Fae males in worn, dirty armor charged toward her. At least ten Autumn Court soldiers.

  She knew who’d sent them, winnowing them on Koschei’s power. Who controlled them, even from across the sea.

  I know where you are, Nesta Archeron.

  And since Rhys had lowered the shields around the Prison … they’d walked right in.