A Court of Wings and Ruin

  Beron only said, “No, you will not. Though I’m sure your brothers will be sorry to hear it.”

  Indeed, the others seemed rather put-out that their first barrier to the throne wasn’t about to risk his life in testing Nuan’s solution.

  Rhys said simply, “Then don’t take it. I will. My entire court will, as will my armies.” He gave a thankful nod to Nuan.

  Thesan did the same—in thanks and dismissal—and the master tinkerer bowed once more and left.

  “At least you have armies to give it to,” Tamlin said mildly, breaking his roiling silence. A smile at me. “Though perhaps that was part of the plan. Disable my force while your own swept in. Or was it just to see my people suffer?”

  A headache was beginning to pound at my right temple.

  Those claws poked through his knuckles again. “Surely you knew that when you turned my forces on me, it would leave my people defenseless against Hybern.”

  I said nothing. Even as I blocked the images from my mind.

  “You primed my court to fall,” Tamlin said with venomous quiet. “And it did. Those villages you wanted so badly to help rebuild? They’re nothing more than cinders now.”

  I shut out that, too. He’d said they’d remain untouched, that Hybern had promised—

  “And while you’ve been making antidotes and casting yourselves as saviors, I’ve been piecing together my forces—regaining their trust, their numbers. Trying to gather my people in the East—where Hybern has not yet marched.”

  Nesta said drily, “So you won’t be taking the antidote, then.”

  Tamlin ignored her, even as his claws sank into the arm of his chair. But I believed him—that he’d moved as many of his people as he could to the eastern edge of the territory. He’d said as much long before I’d returned home.

  Thesan cleared his throat and said to Helion, “You said you had two suggestions based on the information you analyzed.”

  Helion shrugged, the sun catching in the embroidered gold thread of his tunic. “Indeed, though it seems Tamlin is already ahead of me. The Spring Court must be evacuated.” His amber eyes darted between Tarquin and Beron. “Surely your northern neighbors will welcome them.”

  Beron’s lip curled. “We do not have the resources for such a thing.”

  “Right,” Viviane said, “because everyone’s too busy polishing every jewel in that trove of yours.”

  Beron threw her a glare that had Kallias tensing. “Wives were invited as a courtesy, not as consultants.”

  Viviane’s sapphire eyes flared as if struck by lightning. “If this war goes poorly, we’ll be bleeding out right alongside you, so I think we damn well get a say in things.”

  “Hybern will do far worse things than kill you,” Beron counted coolly. “A young, pretty thing like you especially.”

  Kallias’s snarl rippled the water in the reflection pool, echoed by Mor’s own growl.

  Beron smiled a bit. “Only three of us were present for the last war.” A nod to Rhys and Helion, whose face darkened. “One does not easily forget what Hybern and the Loyalists did to captured females in their war-camps. What they reserved for High Fae females who either fought for the humans or had families who did.” He put a heavy hand on his wife’s too-thin arm. “Her two sisters bought her time to run when Hybern’s forces ambushed their lands. The two ladies did not walk out of that war-camp again.”

  Helion was watching Beron closely, his stare simmering with reproach.

  The Lady of the Autumn Court kept her focus on the reflection pool. Any trace of color drained from her face. Dagdan and Brannagh flashed through my mind—along with the corpses of those humans. What they’d done to them before and after they’d died.

  “We will take your people,” Tarquin cut in quietly to Tamlin. “Regardless of your involvement with Hybern … your people are innocent. There is plenty of room in my territory. We will take all of them, if need be.”

  A curt nod was Tamlin’s only acknowledgment and gratitude.

  Beron said, “So the Seasonal Courts are to become the charnel houses and hostels, while the Solar Courts remain pristine here in the North?”

  “Hybern has focused its efforts on the southern half,” Rhys said. “To be close to the wall—and human lands.”

  At this, Nesta and I exchanged looks.

  Rhys went on, “Why bother to go through the northern climes—through faerie territories on the continent, when you could claim the South and use it to go directly to the human lands of the continent?”

  Thesan asked, “And you believe the human armies there will bow to Hybern?”

  “Its queens sold us out,” Nesta said. She lifted her chin, poised as any emissary. “For the gift of immortality, the human queens will allow Hybern in to sweep away any resistance. They might very well hand over control of their armies to him.” Nesta looked to me, to Rhys. “Where do the humans on our island go? We cannot evacuate them to the continent, and with the wall intact … Many might rather risk waiting than cross over the wall anyway.”

  “The fate of the humans below the wall,” Beron cut in, “is none of our concern. Especially in a spit of land with no queen, no army.”

  “It is my concern,” I said, and the voice that came out of me was not Feyre the huntress or Feyre the Cursebreaker, but Feyre the High Lady. “Humans are nearly defenseless against our kind.”

  “So go waste your own soldiers defending them,” Beron said. “I will not send my own forces to protect chattel.”

  My blood heated, and I took a breath to cool it, to cool the magic crackling at the insult. It did nothing. If it was this impossible to get all of them to ally against Hybern …

  “You’re a coward,” I breathed to the High Lord of Autumn. Even Rhys tensed.

  Beron just said, “The same could be claimed of you.”

  My stomach churned. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

  “No, but perhaps to that girl’s family—but they’re dead, too, aren’t they? Butchered and burned to death in their own beds. Funny, that you should now seek to defend humans when you were all too happy to offer them up to save yourself.”

  My palms heated, as if twin suns built and swirled beneath them. Easy, Rhys purred. He’s a cranky old bastard.

  But I could barely hear the words behind the tangle of images: Clare’s mutilated body nailed to the wall; the cinders of the Beddors’ house staining the snow like wisps of shadow; the smile of the Attor as it hauled me through those stone halls Under the Mountain—

  “As my lady said,” Rhys drawled, “she does not need to explain herself to you.”

  Beron leaned back in his chair. “Then I suppose I don’t need to explain my motivations, either.”

  Rhys lifted a brow. “Your staggering generosity aside, will you be joining our forces?”

  “I have not yet decided.”

  Eris went so far as to give his father a look bordering on reproach. From genuine alarm or for what that refusal might mean for our own covert alliance, I couldn’t tell.

  “Armies take time to raise,” Cassian said. “You don’t have the luxury of sitting on your ass. You need to rally your soldiers now.”

  Beron only sneered. “I don’t take orders from the bastards of lesser fae whores.”

  My heartbeat was so wild I could hear it in every corner of my body, feel it pounding in my arms, my gut. But it was nothing compared to the wrath on Cassian’s face—or the icy rage on Azriel’s and Rhys’s. And the disgust on Mor’s.

  “That bastard,” Nesta said with utter coolness, though her eyes began to burn, “may wind up being the only person standing in the way of Hybern’s forces and your people.”

  She didn’t so much as look at Cassian as she said it. But he stared at her—as if he’d never seen her before.

  This argument was pointless. And I didn’t care who they were or who I was as I said to Beron, “Get out if you’re not going to be helpful.”

  At his side, Eris had the wits to a
ctually look worried. But Beron continued to ignore his son’s pointed stare and hissed at me, “Did you know that while your mate was warming Amarantha’s bed, most of our people were locked beneath that mountain?”

  I didn’t deign responding.

  “Did you know that while he had his head between her legs, most of us were fighting to keep our families from becoming the nightly entertainment?”

  I tried to shut out the images. The blinding fury at what had been done, what he’d done to keep Amarantha distracted—the secrets he still kept from shame or disinterest in sharing, I didn’t know. Cassian was now trembling two seats down—with restraint. And Rhys said nothing.

  Tarquin murmured, “That’s enough, Beron.”

  Tarquin, who had guessed at Rhysand’s sacrifice, his motives.

  Beron ignored him. “And now Rhysand wants to play hero. Amarantha’s Whore becomes Hybern’s Destroyer. But if it goes badly …” A cruel, cold smile. “Will he get on his knees for Hybern? Or just spread his—”

  I stopped hearing the words. Stopped hearing anything other than my heart, my breathing.

  Fire exploded out of me.

  Raging, white-hot flame that blasted into Beron like a lance.

  CHAPTER

  46

  Beron shielded barely fast enough to block me, but the wake singed Eris’s arm—right through the cloth. And the pale, lovely arm of Lucien’s mother.

  The others shouted, shooting to their feet, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t hear anything but Eris’s words, see those moments Under the Mountain, see that nightmare of Amarantha leading Rhys down the hall, what Rhys had endured—

  Feyre.

  I ignored it as I stood. And sent a wave of water from the reflection pond to encircle Beron and his chair. A bubble without air.

  Flame pounded against it, turning water to steam, but I pushed harder.

  I’d kill him. Kill him and gladly be done with it.

  Feyre.

  I couldn’t tell if Rhysand was yelling it, if he was murmuring it down the bond. Maybe both.

  Beron’s flame barrier slammed into my water, hard enough that ripples began to form, steam hissing amongst them.

  So I bared my teeth and sent a fist of white light punching into that fiery shield—the white light of Day. Spell-breaker. Ward-cleaver.

  Beron’s eyes widened as his shields began to fray. As that water pushed in.

  Then hands were on my face. And violet eyes were before mine, calm and yet insistent. “You’ve proved your point, my love,” Rhys said. “Kill him, and horrible Eris will take his place.”

  Then I’ll kill all of them.

  “As interesting an experiment as that might be,” Rhys crooned, “it would only complicate the matters at hand.”

  Into my mind he whispered, I love you. The words of that hateful bastard don’t mean anything. He has nothing of joy in his life. Nothing good. We do.

  I began to hear things—the trickling water of the pool, the crackle of flames, the quick breathing of those around us, the cursing of Beron trapped in that tightening cocoon of light and water.

  I love you, Rhys said again.

  And I let go of my magic.

  Beron’s flames exploded like an unfurling flower—and bounced harmlessly off the shield Rhys had thrown around us.

  Not to shield against Beron.

  But the other High Lords were now on their feet.

  “That was how you got through my wards,” Tarquin murmured.

  Beron was panting so hard he looked like he might spew fire.

  But Helion rubbed his jaw as he sat down once more. “I wondered where it went—that little bit. So small—like a fish missing a single scale. But I still felt whenever something brushed against that empty spot.” A smirk at Rhys. “No wonder you made her High Lady.”

  “I made her High Lady,” Rhys said simply, lowering his hands from my face but not leaving my side, “because I love her. Her power was the last thing I considered.”

  I was beyond words, beyond basic feelings. Helion asked Tamlin, “You knew of her powers?”

  Tamlin was only watching me and Rhys, my mate’s declaration hanging between us. “It was none of your business,” was all Tamlin said to Helion. To all of them.

  “The power belongs to us. I think it is,” Beron seethed.

  Mor leveled a look at Beron that would have sent lesser males running.

  The Lady of Autumn was clutching her arm, angry red splattered along the moon-white skin. No glimmer of pain on that face, though. I said to her as I reclaimed my seat, “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes lifted toward mine, round as saucers.

  Beron spat, “Don’t talk to her, you human filth.”

  Rhys shattered through Beron’s shield, his fire, his defenses.

  Shattered through them like a stone hurled into a window, and slammed his dark power into Beron so hard he rocked back in his seat. Then that seat disintegrated into black, sparkling dust beneath him.

  Leaving Beron to fall on his ass.

  Glittering ebony dust drifted away on a phantom wind, staining Beron’s crimson jacket, clinging like clumps of ash to his brown hair.

  “Don’t ever,” Rhys said, hands sliding into his pockets, “speak to my mate like that again.”

  Beron shot to his feet, not bothering to brush off the dust, and declared to no one in particular, “This meeting is over. I hope Hybern butchers you all.”

  But Nesta rose from her chair. “This meeting is not over.”

  Even Beron paused at her tone. Eris sized up the space between my sister and his father.

  She stood tall, a pillar of steel. “You are all there is,” she said to Beron, to all of us. “You are all that there is between Hybern and the end of everything that is good and decent.” She settled her stare on Beron, unflinching and fierce. “You fought against Hybern in the last war. Why do you refuse to do so now?”

  Beron did not deign to answer. But he did not leave. Eris subtly motioned his brothers to sit.

  Nesta marked the gesture—hesitated. As if realizing she indeed held their complete attention. That every word mattered. “You may hate us. I don’t care if you do. But I do care if you let innocents suffer and die. At least stand for them. Your people. For Hybern will make an example of them. Of all of us.”

  “And you know this how?” Beron sneered.

  “I went into the Cauldron,” Nesta said flatly. “It showed me his heart. He will bring down the wall, and butcher those on either side of it.”

  Truth or lie, I could not tell. Nesta’s face revealed nothing. And no one dared contradict her.

  She looked to Kallias and Viviane. “I am sorry for the loss of those children. The loss of one is abhorrent.” She shook her head. “But beneath the wall, I witnessed children—entire families—starve to death.” She jerked her chin at me. “Were it not for my sister … I would be among them.”

  My eyes burned, but I blinked it away.

  “Too long,” Nesta said. “For too long have humans beneath the wall suffered and died while you in Prythian thrived. Not during that—queen’s reign.” She recoiled, as if hating to even speak Amarantha’s name. “But long before. If you fight for anything—fight now, to protect those you forgot. Let them know they’re not forgotten. Just this once.”

  Thesan cleared his throat. “While a noble sentiment, the details of the Treaty did not demand we provide for our human neighbors. They were to be left alone. So we obeyed.”

  Nesta remained standing. “The past is the past. What I care about is the road ahead. What I care about is making sure no children—Fae or human—are harmed. You have been entrusted with protecting this land.” She scanned the faces around her. “How can you not fight for it?”

  She looked to Beron and his family as she finished. Only the Lady and Eris seemed to be considering—impressed, even, by the strange, simmering woman before them.

  I didn’t have the words in me—to convey what was in my heart. Cassian see
med the same.

  Beron only said, “I shall consider it.” A look at his family, and they vanished.

  Eris was the last to winnow, something conflicted dancing over his face, as if this was not the outcome he’d planned for. Expected.

  But then he, too, was gone, the space where they’d been empty save for that black, glittering dust.

  Slowly, Nesta sat, her face again cold—as if it were a mask to conceal whatever raged in her at Beron’s disappearance.

  Kallias asked me quietly, “Did you master the ice?”

  I gave a shallow nod. “All of it.”

  Kallias scrubbed at his face as Viviane set a hand on his arm. “Does it make a difference, Kal?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  That fast, this alliance unraveled. That fast—because of my lack of control, my—

  It either would have been this or something else, Rhys said from where he stood beside my chair, one hand toying with the glittering panels on the back of my gown. Better now than later. Kallias won’t break—he just needs to sort it through on his own.

  But Tarquin said, “You saved us Under the Mountain. Losing a kernel of power seems a worthy payment.”

  “It seems she took far more than that,” Helion argued, “if she could be within seconds of drowning Beron despite the wards.” Perhaps I’d gotten around them simply by being Made—outside anything the wards knew to recognize.

  Helion’s power, warm and clear, brushed against the shield, trawling through the air between us. As if testing for a tether. As if I were some parasite, leeching power from him. And he’d gladly sever it.

  Thesan declared, “What’s done is done. Short of killing her”— Rhys’s power roiled through the room at the words—“there is nothing we can do.”

  It wasn’t entirely placating, his tone. Words of peace, yet the tone was terse. As if, were it not for Rhys and his power, he’d consider tying me down on an altar and cutting me open to see where his power was—and how to take it back.

  I stood, looking Thesan in the eye. Then Helion. Tarquin. Kallias. Exactly as Nesta had done. “I did not take your power. You gave it to me, along with the gift of my immortal life. I am grateful for both. But they are mine now. And I will do with them what I will.”