A Court of Thorns and Roses

  I adjusted the weight of the quiver strap across my chest, then ran a finger along the smooth curve of the yew bow in my lap. The bow was larger than the one I used at home, the arrows heavier and heads thicker. I would probably miss whatever target I found until I adjusted to the weight and balance of the bow.

  Five years ago I’d taken the very last of my father’s coppers from our former fortune to purchase my bow and arrows. I’d since allotted a small sum every month for arrows and replacement strings.

  “Well?” Lucien pressed. “No game good enough for you to slaughter? We’ve passed plenty of squirrels and birds.” The canopy above cast shadows upon his fox mask—light and dark and gleaming metal.

  “You seem to have enough food on your table that I don’t need to add to it, especially when there’s always plenty left over.” I doubted squirrel would be good enough for their table.

  Lucien snorted but didn’t say anything else as we passed beneath a flowering lilac, its purple cones drooping low enough to graze my cheek like cool, velvety fingers. The sweet, crisp scent lingered in my nose even as we rode on. Not useful, I told myself. Although … the thick brush beyond it would be a good hiding spot, if I needed one.

  “You said you were an emissary for Tamlin,” I ventured. “Do emissaries usually patrol the grounds?” A casual, disinterested question.

  Lucien clicked his tongue. “I’m Tamlin’s emissary for formal uses, but this was Andras’s shift. So someone needed to fill in. It’s an honor to do it.”

  I swallowed hard. Andras had a place here, and friends here—he hadn’t been just some nameless, faceless faerie. No doubt he was more missed than I was. “I’m … sorry,” I said—and meant it. “I didn’t know what—what he meant to you all.”

  Lucien shrugged. “Tamlin said as much, which was no doubt why he brought you here. Or maybe you looked so pathetic in those rags that he took pity on you.”

  “I wouldn’t have joined you if I’d known you would use this ride as an excuse to insult me.” Alis had mentioned that Lucien could use someone who snapped back at him. Easy enough.

  Lucien smirked. “Apologies, Feyre.”

  I might have called him a liar for that apology had I not known he couldn’t lie. Which made the apology … sincere? I couldn’t sort it out.

  “So,” he said, “when are you going to start trying to persuade me to beseech Tamlin to find a way to free you from the Treaty’s rules?”

  I tried not to jolt. “What?”

  “That’s why you agreed to come out here, isn’t it? Why you wound up at the stables exactly as I was leaving?” He shot me a sideways glance with that russet eye of his. “Honestly, I’m impressed—and flattered you think I have that kind of sway with Tamlin.”

  I wouldn’t reveal my hand—not yet. “What are you talking—”

  His cocked head was answer enough. He chuckled and said, “Before you waste one of your precious few human breaths, let me explain two things to you. One: if I had my way, you’d be gone, so it wouldn’t take much convincing on your part. Two: I can’t have my way, because there is no alternative to what the Treaty demands. There’s no extra loophole.”

  “But—but there has to be something—”

  “I admire your balls, Feyre—I really do. Or maybe it’s stupidity. But since Tam won’t gut you, which was my first choice, you’re stuck here. Unless you want to rough it on your own in Prythian, which”—he looked me up and down—“I’d advise against.”

  No—no, I couldn’t just … just stay here. Forever. Until I died. Maybe … maybe there was some other way, or someone else who could find a way out. I mastered my uneven breathing, shoving away the panicked, bleating thoughts.

  “A valiant effort,” Lucien said with a smirk.

  I didn’t bother hiding the glare I cut in his direction.

  We rode on in silence, and aside from a few birds and squirrels, I saw nothing—heard nothing—unusual. After a few minutes I’d quieted my riotous thoughts enough to say, “Where is the rest of Tamlin’s court? They all fled this blight on magic?”

  “How’d you know about the court?” he asked so quickly that I realized he thought I meant something else.

  I kept my face blank. “Do normal estates have emissaries? And servants chatter. Isn’t that why you made them wear bird masks to that party?”

  Lucien scowled, that scar stretching. “We each chose what to wear that night to honor Tamlin’s shape-shifting gifts. The servants, too. But now, if we had the choice, we’d peel them off with our bare hands,” he said, tugging on his own. It didn’t move.

  “What happened to the magic to make it act that way?”

  Lucien let out a harsh laugh. “Something was sent from the shit-holes of Hell,” he said, then glanced around and swore. “I shouldn’t have said that. If word got back to her—”

  “Who?”

  The color had leeched from his sun-kissed skin. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Never mind. The less you know, the better. Tam might not find it troublesome to tell you about the blight, but I wouldn’t put it past a human to sell the information to the highest bidder.”

  I bristled, but the few bits of information he’d released lay before me like glittering jewels. A her who scared Lucien enough to make him worry—to make him afraid someone might be listening, spying, monitoring his behavior. Even out here. I studied the shadows between the trees but found nothing.

  Prythian was ruled by seven High Lords—perhaps this she was whoever governed this territory; if not a High Lord, then a High Lady. If that was even possible.

  “How old are you?” I asked, hoping he’d keep divulging some more useful information. It was better than knowing nothing.

  “Old,” he said. He scanned the brush, but I had a feeling his darting eyes weren’t looking for game. His shoulders were too tense.

  “What sort of powers do you have? Can you shape-shift like Tamlin?”

  He sighed, looking skyward before he studied me warily, that metal eye narrowing with unnerving focus. “Trying to figure out my weaknesses so you can—” I glowered at him. “Fine. No, I can’t shape-shift. Only Tam can.”

  “But your friend—he appeared as a wolf. Unless that was his—”

  “No, no. Andras was High Fae, too. Tam can shift us into other shapes if need be. He saves it for his sentries only, though. When Andras went across the wall, Tam changed him into a wolf so he wouldn’t be spotted as a faerie. Though his size was probably indication enough.”

  A shudder went down my spine, violent enough that I didn’t acknowledge the red-hot glare Lucien lobbed my way. I didn’t have the nerve to ask if Tamlin could change me into another shape.

  “Anyway,” Lucien went on, “the High Fae don’t have specific powers the way the lesser faeries do. I don’t have a natural-born affinity, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t clean everything in sight or lure mortals to a watery death or grant you answers to whatever questions you might have if you trap me. We just exist—to rule.”

  I turned in the other direction so he couldn’t see as I rolled my eyes. “I suppose if I were one of you, I’d be one of the faeries, not High Fae? A lesser faerie like Alis, waiting on you hand and foot?” He didn’t reply, which amounted to a yes. With that arrogance, no wonder Lucien found my presence as a replacement for his friend to be abhorrent. And since he would probably loathe me forever, since he’d ended my scheming before it had even begun, I asked, “How’d you get that scar?”

  “I didn’t keep my mouth shut when I should have, and was punished for it.”

  “Tamlin did that to you?”

  “Cauldron, no. He wasn’t there. But he got me the replacement afterward.”

  More answers-that-weren’t-answers. “So there are faeries who will actually answer any question if you trap them?” Maybe they’d know how to free me from the Treaty’s terms.

  “Yes,” he said tightly. “The Suriel. But they’re old and wicked, and not worth the danger of going out to fin
d them. And if you’re stupid enough to keep looking so intrigued, I’m going to become rather suspicious and tell Tam to put you under house arrest. Though I suppose you would deserve it if you were indeed stupid enough to seek one out.”

  They had to lurk nearby, then, if he was this concerned. Lucien whipped his head to the right, listening, his eye whirring softly. The hair on my neck stood, and I had my bow drawn in a heartbeat, pointing in the direction Lucien stared.

  “Put your bow down,” he whispered, his voice low and rough. “Put your damned bow down, human, and look straight ahead.”

  I did as he said, the hair on my arms rising as something rustled in the brush.

  “Don’t react,” Lucien said, forcing his gaze ahead, too, the metal eye going still and silent. “No matter what you feel or see, don’t react. Don’t look. Just stare ahead.”

  I started trembling, gripping the reins in my sweaty hands. I might have wondered if this was some kind of horrible joke, but Lucien’s face had gone so very, very pale. Our horses’ ears flattened against their heads, but they continued walking, as if they’d also understood Lucien’s command.

  And then I felt it.

  Chapter 10

  My blood froze as a creeping, leeching cold lurched by. I couldn’t see anything, just a vague shimmering in the corner of my vision, but my horse stiffened beneath me. I willed my face into blankness. Even the balmy spring woods seemed to recoil, to wither and freeze.

  The cold thing whispered past, circling. I could see nothing, but I could feel it. And in the back of my mind, an ancient, hollow voice whispered:

  I will grind your bones between my claws; I will drink your marrow; I will feast on your flesh. I am what you fear; I am what you dread … Look at me. Look at me.

  I tried to swallow, but my throat had closed up. I kept my eyes on the trees, on the canopy, on anything but the cold mass circling us again and again.

  Look at me.

  I wanted to look—I needed to see what it was.

  Look at me.

  I stared at the coarse trunk of a distant elm, thinking of pleasant things. Like hot bread and full bellies—

  I will fill my belly with you. I will devour you. Look at me.

  A starry, unclouded night sky, peaceful and glittering and endless. Summer sunrise. A refreshing bath in a forest pool. Meetings with Isaac, losing myself for an hour or two in his body, in our shared breaths.

  It was all around us, so cold that my teeth chattered. Look at me.

  I stared and stared at that ever-nearing tree trunk, not daring to blink. My eyes strained, filling with tears, and I let them fall, refusing to acknowledge the thing that lurked around us.

  Look at me.

  And just as I thought I would give in, when my eyes hurt so much from not looking, the cold disappeared into the brush, leaving a trail of still, recoiling plants behind it. Only after Lucien exhaled and our horses shook their heads did I dare sag in my seat. Even the crocuses seemed to straighten again.

  “What was that?” I asked, brushing the tears from my face.

  Lucien’s face was still pale. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Please. Was it that … Suriel you mentioned?”

  Lucien’s russet eye was dark as he answered hoarsely. “No. It was a creature that should not be in these lands. We call it the Bogge. You cannot hunt it, and you cannot kill it. Even with your beloved ash arrows.”

  “Why can’t I look at it?”

  “Because when you look at it—when you acknowledge it—that’s when it becomes real. That’s when it can kill you.”

  A shiver spider-walked down my spine. This was the Prythian I’d expected—the creatures that made humans speak of them in hushed tones even now. The reason I hadn’t hesitated, not for a heartbeat, when I’d considered the possibility of that wolf being a faerie. “I heard its voice in my head. It told me to look.”

  Lucien rolled his shoulders. “Well, thank the Cauldron that you didn’t. Cleaning up that mess would have ruined the rest of my day.” He gave me a wan smile. I didn’t return it.

  I still heard the Bogge’s voice whispering between the leaves, calling to me.

  After an hour of meandering through the trees, hardly speaking to each other, I’d stopped trembling enough to turn to him.

  “So you’re old,” I said. “And you carry around a sword, and go on border patrol. Did you fight in the War?” Fine—perhaps I hadn’t quite let go of my curiosity about his eye.

  He winced. “Shit, Feyre—I’m not that old.”

  “Are you a warrior, though?” Would you be able to kill me if it ever came to that?

  Lucien huffed a laugh. “Not as good as Tam, but I know how to handle my weapons.” He patted the hilt of his sword. “Would you like me to teach you how to wield a blade, or do you already know how, oh mighty mortal huntress? If you took down Andras, you probably don’t need to learn anything. Only where to aim, right?” He tapped on his chest.

  “I don’t know how to use a sword. I only know how to hunt.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  “For me it’s different.”

  Lucien fell silent, considering. “I suppose you humans are such hateful cowards that you would have wet yourself, curled up, and waited to die if you’d known beyond a doubt what Andras truly was.” Insufferable. Lucien sighed as he looked me over. “Do you ever stop being so serious and dull?”

  “Do you ever stop being such a prick?” I snapped back.

  Dead—really, truly, I should have been dead for that.

  But Lucien grinned at me. “Much better.”

  Alis, it seemed, had not been wrong.

  Whatever tentative truce we built that afternoon vanished at the dinner table.

  Tamlin was lounging in his usual seat, a long claw out and circling his goblet. It paused on the lip as soon as I entered, Lucien on my heels. His green eyes pinned me to the spot.

  Right. I’d brushed him off that morning, claiming I wanted to be alone.

  Tamlin slowly looked at Lucien, whose face had turned grave. “We went on a hunt,” Lucien said.

  “I heard,” Tamlin said roughly, glancing between us as we took our seats. “And did you have fun?” Slowly, his claw sank back into his flesh.

  Lucien didn’t answer, leaving it to me. Coward. I cleared my throat. “Sort of,” I said.

  “Did you catch anything?” Every word was clipped out.

  “No.” Lucien gave me a pointed cough, as if urging me to say more.

  But I had nothing to say. Tamlin stared at me for a long moment, then dug into his food, not all that interested in talking to me, either.

  Then Lucien quietly said, “Tam.”

  Tamlin looked up, more animal than fae in those green eyes. A demand for whatever it was Lucien had to say.

  Lucien’s throat bobbed. “The Bogge was in the forest today.”

  The fork in Tamlin’s hand folded in on itself. He said with lethal calm, “You ran into it?”

  Lucien nodded. “It moved past but came close. It must have snuck through the border.”

  Metal groaned as Tamlin’s claws punched out, obliterating the fork. He rose to his feet with a powerful, brutal movement. I tried not to tremble at the contained fury, at how his canines seemed to lengthen as he said, “Where in the forest?”

  Lucien told him. Tamlin threw a glance in my direction before stalking out of the room and shutting the door behind him with unnerving gentleness.

  Lucien loosed a breath, pushing away his half-eaten food and rubbing at his temples.

  “Where is he going?” I asked, staring toward the door.

  “To hunt the Bogge.”

  “You said it couldn’t be killed—that you can’t face it.”

  “Tam can.”

  My breath caught a bit. The gruff High Fae halfheartedly flattering me was capable of killing a thing like the Bogge. And yet he’d served me himself that first night, offered me life rather than death. I’d known he was lethal,
that he was a warrior of sorts, but …

  “So he went to hunt the Bogge where we were earlier today?”

  Lucien shrugged. “If he’s going to pick up a trail, it would be there.”

  I had no idea how anyone could face that immortal horror, but … it wasn’t my problem.

  And just because Lucien wasn’t going to eat anymore didn’t mean I wouldn’t. Lucien, lost in thought, didn’t even notice the feast I downed.

  I returned to my room, and—awake and with nothing else to do—began monitoring the garden beyond for any signs of Tamlin’s return. He didn’t come back.

  I sharpened the knife I’d hidden away on a bit of stone I’d taken from the garden. An hour passed—and still Tamlin didn’t return.

  The moon showed her face, casting the garden below in silver and shadow.

  Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous to watch for his return, to see if he could indeed survive against the Bogge. I turned from the window, about to drag myself into bed.

  But something moved out in the garden.

  I lunged for the curtains beside the window, not wanting to be caught waiting for him, and peered out.

  Not Tamlin—but someone lurked by the hedges, facing the house. Looking toward me.

  Male, hunched, and—

  The breath went out of me as the faerie hobbled closer—just two steps into the light leaking from the house.

  Not a faerie, but a man.

  My father.

  Chapter 11

  I didn’t give myself a chance to panic, to doubt, to do anything but wish I had stolen some food from my breakfast table as I layered on tunic after tunic and bundled myself in a cloak, stuffing the knife I’d stolen into my boot. The extra clothes in the satchel would just be a burden to carry.

  My father. My father had come to take me—to save me. Whatever benefits Tamlin had given him upon my departure couldn’t be too tempting, then. Maybe he had a ship prepared to take us far, far away—maybe he had somehow sold the cottage and gotten enough money to set us up in a new place, a new continent.