A Court of Wings and Ruin

  Rhys said to Cassian, “I’m not letting you throw your life away for this.”

  I was inclined to agree.

  Cassian surveyed the depleted Illyrian lines, now holding strong as Azriel rallied them. “Az has control of the lines.”

  “I said no,” Rhys snapped. I’d never heard him use that tone with Cassian, with any of them.

  Cassian said steadily, “It’s the only shot we have of a diversion. Luring him away from that Cauldron.” His hands tightened on Nesta. “You gave everything, Rhys. You went through that hell for us, for fifty years.” He’d never addressed it—not fully. “You think I don’t know what happened? I know, Rhys. We all do. And we know you did it to save us, spare us.” He shook his head, sunlight glinting off that dark, winged helmet. “Let us return the favor. Let us repay the debt.”

  “There is no debt to repay.” Rhys’s voice broke. The sound of it cracked my heart.

  Cassian’s own voice broke as he said, “I never got to repay your mother—for her kindness. Let me do it this way. Let me buy you time.”

  “I can’t.”

  I wasn’t sure if in the entire history of Illyria, there had ever been such a discussion.

  “You can,” Cassian said gently. “You can, Rhys.” He gave a lazy grin. “Save some of the glory for the rest of us.”

  “Cassian—”

  But Cassian asked Nesta, “Do you have what you need?”

  Nesta nodded. “Amren showed me enough. What to do to rally the power to me.”

  And if Amren and I could control the Cauldron between us … That distraction they’d offer …

  Nesta looked down to Elain—our sister monitoring the bloodbath ahead. Then to me. She said quietly, “Tell Father—thank you.”

  She wrapped her arms tightly around Cassian, those gray-blue eyes bright, then they were gone.

  Rhys’s body strained with the effort of not going after them as they soared for a copse of trees far behind the battlefield. “He might survive,” I said softly.

  “No,” Rhys said, flying us down to Amren and Elain. “He won’t.”

  I had Rhys move Elain to the farthest reaches of our camp. And when he returned, my mate only pressed a kiss to my mouth before he took to the skies, spearing for the heart of the battle—the heaviest fighting. I could barely stand to look—to see where he landed.

  Alone with Amren, she said to me, “Shield us from sight, and run as fast as you can. Don’t stop; try not to kill. It’ll leave a trail.”

  I nodded, checking my weapons. The Seraphim were soaring overhead now, wings bright as the sun on snow. I settled a glamour around us, veiling us and muffling our sounds.

  “Quickly,” Amren repeated, silver eyes churning like thunderclouds. “Don’t look back.”

  So I didn’t.

  CHAPTER

  73

  The Cauldron had been nestled in a craggy overlook.

  The Weaver had done her job well. Key guards and posts were little more than wet, red piles of bone and sinew. And I knew that when I saw her again … she would be even more blindingly beautiful.

  Amren’s power flared again and again, breaking through wards in our path until we reached Stryga’s wake. Whatever spells the king had laid … Amren was prepared for them. Hungry for them. She shattered them all with a savage smile.

  But the gray hill was crawling with Hybern commanders, content to let their underlings fight. Waiting until the killing field had sorted the grunts from the true warriors. I could hear them hissing about who on our side they wanted to personally take on.

  Helion and Tarquin were two of the most frequent wishes.

  Tamlin was the other. Tamlin, for his two-faced lying. And Jurian. How they would suffer.

  Varian. Azriel. Cassian. Kallias and Viviane. Mor. They said the names of my friends like they were horses at a race. Who would last long enough for them to face off. Who would haul the pretty mate of the Lord of Winter back here. Who would break the Morrigan at last. Who would bring home Illyrian wings to pin on the wall. My blood was boiling, even as my bones quaked. I hoped Bryaxis devoured them all—and made them wet themselves in terror before it did.

  But I dared look behind us once.

  Mor and Viviane weren’t coming to this camp anytime soon. They held off an entire cluster of Hybern soldiers, flanked by that white-haired female I’d seen in the Winter camp and a unit of those mighty bears that shredded apart soldiers with swipes of their enormous paws.

  Amren hissed in warning, and I faced forward as we began to scale the quiet side of the gray hill. No sign of Stryga, though she had stopped here, at the base of the hill atop which the Cauldron squatted. I could already feel its terrible presence—the beckoning.

  Amren and I climbed slowly. Listening after every step.

  The battle raged behind us. In the skies and on the earth and in the sea.

  I did not think … even with Drakon and the human army … I did not think it was going well.

  My hands bit into the sharp gray rock of the hill’s cliff face, body straining as I hauled myself up, Amren climbing with ease. Nesta had to lure the king away soon, or we’d be face-to-face with him.

  Movement at the base of the rock caught my attention.

  I went still as death.

  A beautiful, dark-haired young woman stood there. Staring up at us, squinting and sniffing.

  A smile bloomed on her red—her bloody mouth. She smiled in my general direction. Revealing blood-coated teeth.

  Stryga. The Weaver had waited. Hiding here. Until we arrived.

  She brushed a snow-white hand over the tattoo of a crescent moon now on her forearm. Rhys’s bargain-mark. A reminder—and warning.

  To go. To hurry.

  She faced the rocky path half-visible to our left, Ianthe’s jewel splattered with blood where it sat atop her head. Strode right to the guards stationed there, who we’d been climbing the cliff face to avoid. Some of them jolted. Stryga smiled once—a hateful, awful smile—and leaped upon them.

  A diversion.

  Amren shuddered, but we launched into motion once more. The guards were focused on her slaughtering, sprinting from their posts up the hill to meet her.

  Faster—we didn’t have much time. I could feel the Cauldron rallying—

  No. Not the Cauldron.

  That power … it came from behind.

  Nesta.

  “Good girl,” Amren muttered under her breath. Just before she grabbed me by the back of my jacket and slammed me face-first into the stone, ducking low.

  Right as a pair of boots strolled down the narrow path. I knew the sound of his footsteps. They haunted my dreams.

  The King of Hybern walked right past us. Focused on Stryga, on Nesta’s distant rumble of power.

  The Weaver paused as she beheld who approached. Smiled, blood dripping off her chin.

  “How beautiful you are,” he murmured, his voice a seductive croon. “How magnificent, ancient one.”

  She brushed her dark hair over a slim shoulder. “You may bow, king. As it was once done.”

  The King of Hybern walked right up to her. Smiled down at Stryga’s exquisite face.

  Then he took that face in his broad hands, faster than she could move, and snapped her neck.

  It might not have killed her. The Weaver was a death-god—her very existence defied our own. So it might not have killed her, that cracking of her spine. Had the king not tossed her body down to the two naga-hounds snarling at the foot of the hill.

  They ripped into the Weaver’s limp body without hesitation.

  Even Amren let out a sound of dismay.

  But the king was staring northward. Toward Nesta.

  That power—her power—surged again. Beckoning, as the Cauldron atop this rock now called to me.

  He gazed toward the sea—the battle raging there.

  I could have sworn he was smiling as he winnowed away.

  “Now,” Amren breathed.

  I couldn’t move. Cassi
an and Nesta—even Rhys thought there was no shot of survival.

  “You make it count,” Amren snapped, and that was true grief shining in her eyes. She knew what was about to happen. The window that we’d been bought.

  I swallowed my despair, my terror, and charged up the hill—to the crag.

  To where the Cauldron sat. Unguarded. Waiting for us.

  The Book appeared in Amren’s small hands. The Cauldron was nearly as tall as she was. A looming black pit of hate and power.

  I could stop this. Right now. Stop this army—and the king before he killed Nesta and Cassian. Amren opened the Book. Looked at me expectantly.

  “Put your hand on the Cauldron,” she said quietly. I obeyed.

  The Cauldron’s endless power slammed into me, a wave threatening to sweep me under, a storm with no end.

  I could barely keep one foot in this world, barely remember my name. I clung to what I had seen in the Ouroboros—clung to every reflection and memory I had faced and owned, the good and wicked and the gray. Who I was, who I was, who I was—

  Amren watched me for a long moment. And did not read from the Book. Did not put it in my hands. She shut the gold pages and shoved it behind her with a kick.

  Amren had lied. She did not plan to leash the king or his army with the Cauldron and the Book.

  And whatever trap she had set … I had fallen right into it.

  CHAPTER

  74

  I gripped my sense of self in the face of the black maw of the Cauldron. Gripped it with everything I had.

  Amren only said, “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  I could not remove my hand. Could not pry my fingers away. I was being shredded apart, slowly, thoroughly.

  I flung my magic out, desperate for any chain to this world to save me, keep me from being devoured by the eternal, awful thing that now tried to drag me into its embrace.

  Fire and water and light and wind and ice and night. All rallied. All failed me.

  Some tether slipped, and my mind slid closer to the Cauldron’s outstretched arms.

  I felt it touch me.

  And then I was half gone.

  Half there, standing silently next to the Cauldron, hand glued to the black rim.

  Half … elsewhere.

  Flying through the world. Searching. The Cauldron now hunted for that power that had come so close … And now taunted it.

  Nesta.

  The Cauldron searched for her, searched for her as the king now sought her.

  It skimmed across the battlefield like an insect over the surface of a pond.

  We were losing. Badly. Seraphim and Illyrians were bloodied and being hauled out of the sky. Azriel had been forced to the ground, his wings dragging in the bloody mud as he fought sword to sword against the endless onslaught. Our foot soldiers had broken the lines in places, Keir screaming at his Darkbringers to get back into position, plumes of shadows flaring from him.

  I saw Rhysand. In the thick of those breaking lines. Blood-splattered, fighting beautifully.

  I saw him assess the field ahead—and transform.

  The talons came first. Replacing fingers and feet. Then dark scales or perhaps feathers, I couldn’t get a look at them, covered his legs, his arms, his chest. His body contorted, bones and muscles growing and shifting.

  The beast form Rhys had kept hidden. Never liked to unleash.

  Unless it was dire enough to do so.

  Before the Cauldron swept me away, I beheld what happened to his head, his face.

  It was a thing of nightmares. Nothing human or Fae in it. It was a creature that lived in black pits and only emerged at night to hunt and feast. The face … it was those creatures that had been carved into the rock of the Court of Nightmares. That made up his throne. The throne not only a representation of his power … but of what lurked within. And with the wings …

  Hybern soldiers began fleeing.

  Helion beheld what happened and ran, too—but toward Rhys.

  Shifting as well.

  If Rhys was a flying terror crafted from shadows and cold moonlight, Helion was his daytime equivalent.

  Gold feathers and shredding claws and feathered wings—

  Together, my mate and the High Lord of Day unleashed themselves upon Hybern.

  Until they paused. Until a slim, short male walked out of the ranks toward them—one of Hybern’s commanders, no doubt. Rhys’s snarl shook the earth. But it was Helion, glowing with white light, who stepped forward to face the male, claws sinking deep into the mud.

  The commander didn’t so much as wear a sword. Only fine gray clothes and a vaguely amused expression on his face. Amethyst light swirled around him. Helion growled at Rhys—an order.

  And my mate nodded, gore dripping from his maw, before he lunged back into the fray.

  Leaving the commander and Helion Spell-Cleaver to go head-to-head. Spell to spell.

  Soldiers on either side began fleeing.

  But the Cauldron whipped me away as Helion unleashed a blast of light toward the commander, its quarry not to be found on that battlefield.

  Come, Nesta’s power seemed to sing. Come.

  The Cauldron caught her scent and hurtled us onward.

  We arrived before the king did.

  The Cauldron seemed to skid to a halt at the clearing. Seemed to coil and reel back, a snake poised to strike.

  Nesta and Cassian stood there, his sword out, Nesta’s eyes blazing with that inner, unholy fire. “Get ready,” she breathed. “He’s coming.”

  The power Nesta was holding back …

  She’d kill the King of Hybern.

  Cassian was the distraction—while her blow found its mark.

  Time seemed to slow and warp. The dark power of the king speared toward us. Toward that clearing where I was neither seen nor heard, where I was nothing but a scrap of soul carried on a black wind.

  The King of Hybern winnowed right in front of them.

  Nesta’s power rallied—then vanished.

  Cassian did not move. Did not dare.

  For the King of Hybern held my father before him, a sword to his throat.

  That was why he had looked to the sea. He’d known Nesta would land that killing blow the moment he appeared, and the only way to stop it …

  A human shield. One she’d think twice about allowing to die.

  Our father was blood-splattered, leaner than the last time I’d seen him. “Nesta,” he breathed, noting the ears, the Fae grace. The power sputtering out in her eyes.

  The king smiled. “What a loving father—to bring an entire army to save his daughters.”

  Nesta did not say anything. Cassian’s attention darted through the clearing, sizing up every advantage, every angle.

  Save him, I begged the Cauldron of my father. Help him.

  The Cauldron did not answer. It had no voice, no consciousness save some base need to take back that which had been stolen.

  The King of Hybern tilted his head to peer at my father’s bearded and weather-tanned face. “So many things have changed since you were last home. Three daughters, now Fae. One of them married quite well.”

  My father only gazed at my sister. Ignored the monster behind him and said to her, “I loved you from the first moment I held you in my arms. And I am … I am so sorry, Nesta—my Nesta. I am so sorry, for all of it.”

  “Please,” Nesta said to the king. Her only word, guttural and hoarse. “Please.”

  “What will you give me, Nesta Archeron?”

  Nesta stared and stared at my father, who was shaking his head. Cassian’s hand twitched, the blade rising. Trying to get a good shot.

  “Will you give back what you took?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if I have to carve it out of you?”

  Our father snarled, “Don’t you lay your filthy hands on my daughter—”

  I heard the crack before I realized what happened.

  Before I saw the way my father’s head twisted. Saw the light fre
eze in his eyes.

  Nesta made no sound. Showed no reaction as the King of Hybern snapped our father’s neck.

  I began screaming. Screaming and thrashing inside the Cauldron’s grip. Begging it to stop it—to bring him back, to end it—

  Nesta looked down at my father’s body as it crumpled to the forest floor.

  And as the king had predicted … Nesta’s power flickered out.

  But Cassian’s had not.

  Arrows of blinding red shot for the King of Hybern, a shield locking around Nesta as Cassian launched himself forward.

  And as Cassian took on the king, who laughed and seemed willing to engage in a bit of swordplay … I stared at my father on that ground. At his open, unseeing eyes.

  Cassian pushed the king away from my father’s body, swords and magics clashing. Not for long. Only long enough to hold him off—for Nesta to perhaps run.

  For me to finish what I had let my family give their lives for. But the Cauldron still held me there.

  Even as I tried to come back to that hill where Amren had betrayed me, had used me for whatever purpose of her own—

  Nesta knelt before our father, her face a void. She gazed into his still-open eyes.

  Closed them gently. Hands steady as stone.

  Cassian had shoved the king deeper into the trees. His shouts rang out.

  Nesta leaned forward to press a kiss to our father’s blood-splattered brow.

  And when she lifted her head …

  The Cauldron thrashed and roiled.

  For in Nesta’s eyes, limning her skin … Uncut power.

  She gazed toward the king and Cassian. Just as Cassian’s bark of pain cut toward us.

  The power around her shuddered. Nesta got to her feet.

  Then Cassian screamed. I looked toward him. Away from my father.

  Not twenty feet away, Cassian was on the ground. Wings—snapped in spots. Blood leaking from them.

  Bone jutted from his thigh. His Siphons were dull. Empty.

  He’d already drained them before coming here. Was exhausted.

  But he had come—for her. For us.

  He was panting, blood dribbling from his nose. Arms buckling as he tried to rise.

  The King of Hybern stood over him, and extended a hand.