A Court of Silver Flames Page 16

Eris still said nothing.

  Cassian glanced between them, watching Rhys piece it together.

  Rhys asked solemnly, “Why does your father want to start a war so badly?”

  “Why does anyone go to war?” Eris reached out a long, slender hand, letting the falling petals gather there. “Why does Vallahan not sign the treaty? The borders of this new world have not yet been set.”

  “Beron doesn’t have the military strength to control the Autumn Court and a territory on the continent,” Cassian countered.

  Eris’s fingers closed around the petals. “Who says he wants land on the continent?” He surveyed the orchard—as if to make a point.

  Silence fell.

  Rhys murmured, “Beron knows another war that pits Fae against Fae would be catastrophic. Many of us would be wiped out entirely. Especially …” Rhys tilted his head back to take in the apple blossoms. “Especially those of us who are weakened. And when the dust settles, there would be at least one court left vacant, its lands bare for the taking.”

  Eris looked toward the hills beyond the orchard, green and gold and glowing in the sunlight. “They say a beast prowls these lands now. A beast with keen green eyes and golden fur. Some people think the beast has forgotten his other shape, so long has he spent in his monstrous form. And though he roams these lands, he does not see or care for the neglect he passes, the lawlessness, the vulnerability. Even his manor has fallen into disrepair, half-eaten by thorns, though rumors fly that he himself destroyed it.”

  “Enough with the double-talk,” Cassian said. “Tamlin’s staying in his beast form and is finally getting the punishment he deserves. So what?”

  Eris and Rhys held each other’s gaze. Eris said, “You’ve been trying to bring Tamlin back for a while. But he isn’t getting better, is he?”

  Rhys’s jaw tightened, his only sign of displeasure.

  Eris nodded knowingly. “I can delay my father from allying with Briallyn and starting this war for a little while. But not forever. A few months, perhaps. So I’d suggest your shadowsinger hurry. Find a way to deal with Briallyn, find out what she wants and why. Discover whether Koschei is indeed involved. At best, we’ll stop them all. At worst, we’ll have proof to justify any conflict and hopefully win allies to our side, avoiding the bloodshed that would carve up these lands once more. My father would think twice before standing against an army of superior strength and size.”

  “You’ve turned into quite the little traitor,” Rhys said, stars winking out in his eyes.

  “I told you years ago what I wanted, High Lord,” Eris said.

  To seize his father’s throne. “Why?” Cassian asked.

  Eris grasped what he meant, apparently, because flame sizzled in his eyes. “For the same reason I left Morrigan untouched at the border.”

  “You left her there to suffer and die,” Cassian spat. His Siphons flickered, and all he could see was the male’s pretty face, all he could feel was his own fist, aching to make contact.

  Eris sneered. “Did I? Perhaps you should ask Morrigan whether that is true. I think she finally knows the answer.” Cassian’s head spun, and the relentless itching resumed, like fingers trailing along his spine, his legs, his scalp. Eris added before winnowing away, “Tell me when the shadowsinger returns.”

  Petals streamed past, thick as a mountain blizzard, and Cassian turned to Rhys.

  But Rhys’s gaze had gone distant—once again distracted. He stared toward the faraway hills, as if he could see the beast that roamed there.

  Cassian had witnessed Rhys going deep into his own head often enough. Knew his brother was prone to withdrawing while appearing perfectly fine. But this level of distraction …

  “What’s the matter with you?” Cassian scratched his scalp. This fucking place.

  Rhys blinked, as if he’d forgotten Cassian stood beside him. “Nothing.” He flicked a petal off the gauntlet of his leathers. “Nothing.”

  “Liar.” Cassian tucked in his wings.

  But Rhys wasn’t listening again. He didn’t say a word before he winnowed them home.

  Nesta stared into the reddish gloom of the staircase.

  She’d been just as sore as yesterday while working in the library, but thankfully Merrill hadn’t come to rip into her about the swapped book. She spoke to no one but Clotho, who had given her only perfunctory greetings. So Nesta had shelved in the dimness, surrounded by whispers of rustling paper, only pausing to wipe the dust from her hands. Priestesses drifted by like ghosts, but Nesta had no glimpse of coppery-brown hair and large teal eyes.

  She honestly didn’t know why she wished to see Gwyn. What Cassian had told her about the attack on the temple wasn’t the sort of thing she had any right to bring up.

  But Gwyn didn’t seek her out, and Nesta didn’t dare go up to the second level to knock on Merrill’s door to see if Gwyn was there.

  So it was silence and soreness, and the roaring in her head. Maybe it was the roaring that had brought her to the stairwell, instead of to her bedroom to wash up. The gloom beckoned, challenging her like the open maw of some great beast. A wyrm, poised to devour her whole.

  Her legs moved of their own accord, and her foot landed upon the first step.

  Down and down, around and around. Nesta ignored the step with the five holes embedded in it. Made a point not to look down as she carefully stepped over it.

  Silence and roaring and nothing nothing nothing—

  Nesta made it to step one hundred fifty before her legs nearly gave out again. Sparing herself another tumble, she panted on the steps, leaning her head against the stone.

  In that roaring silence, she waited for the stairs to stop twisting around her. And when the world was again still, she made the long, horrible climb back up.

  The House had dinner waiting on her desk, along with a book. Apparently, it had noted her request for a book the other day and deemed The Great War too dull. The title of this one was suitably smutty. “I didn’t know you had dirty taste,” Nesta said wryly.

  The House only responded by running a bath.

  “Dinner, bath, and a book,” Nesta said aloud, shaking her head in something close to awe. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  The House said nothing, but when she stepped into her bathroom, she found that it wasn’t an ordinary bath. The House had added an assortment of oils that smelled of rosemary and lavender. She breathed in the heady, beautiful scent, and sighed.

  “I think you might be my only friend,” Nesta said, then groaned her way into the tub’s welcoming warmth.

  The House was apparently so pleased by her words that as soon as she lay back, a tray appeared across the width of the tub. Laden with a massive piece of chocolate cake.

  CHAPTER

  15

  The seventh level of the library was unnerving.

  Standing at the stone railing on Level Six, clutching a book to be shelved, Nesta stared into the darkness mere feet from her, so thick that it hovered like a layer of fog, veiling the levels below.

  Books dwelled down there. She knew that, but she’d never been sent down to those dark levels. Had never seen one of the priestesses venture past the spot where she now stood, peering over the railing. Ahead of her, the darkness beckoned down the ramp. Like it was an entry into some dark pit of hell.

  Hybern’s twin Ravens were dead. Did their blood still stain the ground far below? Or had Rhysand and Bryaxis wiped even that trace of them away?

  The darkness seemed to rise and fall. Like it was breathing.

  The hair on her arms rose.

  Bryaxis was gone. Set loose into the world. Even Feyre and Rhysand’s hunting hadn’t retrieved the thing that was Fear itself.

  And yet the darkness remained. It pulsed, tendrils of shadow drifting upward.

  She’d stared too long into its depths. It might gaze back.

  But she didn’t move from the rail. Couldn’t remember how she’d come down this far, or which book she still held in her hands.

&n
bsp; There was night, and there was the darkness of extinguishing a candle, and then there was this. Not only the true absence of light, but … a womb. The womb from which all life had come and would return, neither good nor evil, only dark, dark, dark.

  Nesta.

  Her name drifted to her as if rising from the depths of some black ocean.

  Nesta.

  It slid along her bones, her blood. She had to pull back. Pull away.

  The darkness pulsed, beckoning.

  “Nesta.”

  She whirled, nearly dropping the book over the edge.

  Gwyn was standing there, eyeing her. “What are you doing?”

  Heart thundering, Nesta twisted toward the darkness, but—it was only that. Murky darkness, through which she could now barely make out the sublevels beneath. As if the thick, impenetrable black had vanished. “It … I …”

  Gwyn, arms laden with books, strode to her side and surveyed the dark. Nesta waited for the chiding, the ridicule and disbelief, but Gwyn only asked gravely, “What did you see?”

  “Why?” Nesta asked. “Do you see things in that darkness?” Her voice was thin.

  “No, but some of the others do. They say the dark has trailed them. Right to their doors.” Gwyn shivered.

  “I saw darkness,” Nesta managed to say. Her heart would not calm. “Pure darkness.”

  The likes of which she had not seen since she’d been inside the Cauldron.

  Gwyn glanced between Nesta and the chasm below. “We should go higher.”

  Nesta lifted the book still in her shaking arms. “I need to shelve this.”

  “Leave it,” Gwyn said, enough authority lacing her words that Nesta dropped the book onto a dark wood table. The priestess put a hand to Nesta’s back, escorting her up the sloping ramp. “Don’t look behind,” Gwyn muttered out of the corner of her mouth. “What level is your cart on?”

  “Four.” She began to twist her head to gaze over her shoulder, but Gwyn pinched her.

  “Don’t look behind,” Gwyn murmured again.

  “Is it following?”

  “No, but …” Gwyn’s swallow was audible. “I can feel something. Like a cat. Small and clever and curious. It’s watching.”

  “If you’re joking—”

  Gwyn reached into the pocket of her pale robe and pulled out the blue stone of the priestesses. It fluttered with light, like the sun on a shallow sea. “Hurry now,” she whispered, and they increased their pace, reaching the fifth level. No other priestesses approached, and there was no one to witness Gwyn urging, “Keep going.”

  The stone in her hand glimmered.

  They made another loop upward, and just as they reached the fourth level, that presence—that sensation of something at their backs—eased.

  They waited until they’d reached Nesta’s cart before Gwyn dumped her books on the ground and flung herself into the nearest tufted armchair. Her hands trembled, but the blue stone had gone dormant again.

  Nesta had to swallow twice before she could say, “What is that?”

  “It’s an Invoking Stone.” Gwyn unfurled her fingers, revealing the gem within her hand. “Similar to the Siphons of the Illyrians, except that the power of the Mother flows through it. We cannot use it for harm, only healing and protection. It was shielding us.”

  “No—I mean, that darkness.”

  Gwyn’s eyes matched her stone almost perfectly, right down to the shadows that now veiled her expression. “They say the being that dwelled down there is gone. But I believe some piece of it might have lingered. Or at the very least altered the darkness itself.”

  “It didn’t feel like that. It felt … older.”

  Gwyn’s brows rose. “Are you an adept in such things?” There was no condescension in the words, only curiosity.

  “I …” Nesta blinked. “Do you not know who I am?”

  “I know you are the High Lady’s sister. That you slew the King of Hybern.” Gwyn’s face grew solemn, haunted. “That you, like Lady Feyre, were once mortal. Human.”

  “I was Made by the Cauldron. At the King of Hybern’s order.”

  Gwyn traced her fingers over the smooth dome of the Invoking Stone. It rippled with light at the touch. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

  “My other sister, Elain—we were forced into the Cauldron and turned High Fae.” Nesta swallowed again. “It … imparted some of itself to me.”

  Gwyn considered the railing, the open drop into the darkness beyond it. “Like calls to like.”

  “Yes.”

  Gwyn shook her head, hair swaying. “Well, perhaps don’t go down to Level Six again.”

  “It’s my job to shelve the books.”

  “Make it known to Clotho and she’ll ensure those books are given to others.”

  “It seems cowardly.”

  “I don’t wish to learn what might come crawling out of that darkness if you, Cauldron-Made, fear it. Especially if it’s … drawn to you.”

  Nesta sank into the chair beside Gwyn’s. “I’m not a warrior.”

  “You slew the King of Hybern,” Gwyn repeated. “With the shadowsinger’s knife.”

  “Luck and rage,” Nesta admitted. “And I had made a promise to kill him for what he did to me and my sister.”

  A priestess walked by, beheld them lounging there, and scurried off. Her fear left a tang in the air like burned food.

  Gwyn sighed after her. “That’s Riven. She’s still uncomfortable with any manner of contact with strangers.”

  “When did she arrive?”

  “Eighty years ago.”

  Nesta started. But sorrow filled Gwyn’s eyes as she explained, “We do not gossip about each other here. Our stories remain our own to tell or to keep. Only Riven, Clotho, and the High Lord know what happened to her. She will not speak of it.”

  “And there has been no help for her?”

  “I am not privy to that information. I know of the resources available to us, but it is not my business whether Riven has utilized them.” From the worry that now etched Gwyn’s face, Nesta knew she had used those services. Or had at least tried.

  Gwyn tucked her hair behind her arched ears. “I meant to find you yesterday to thank you again for switching out that book, but I got tied up with Merrill’s work.” She inclined her head. “I’m in your debt.”

  Nesta rubbed at a persistent cramp in her thigh. “It was nothing.”

  Gwyn noted the movement. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

  Nesta gritted her teeth. “Nothing. I’m training every morning with Cassian.” She had no idea if Gwyn knew of him, so she clarified, “The High Lord’s general—”

  “I know who he is. Everyone knows who he is.” It was impossible to read Gwyn’s face. “Why do you train with him?”

  Nesta brushed a clump of dust off her knee. “Let’s just say that I was presented with several options, all designed to … curb my behavior. Training with Cassian in the morning and working here in the afternoon was the most palatable.”

  “Why do you need to curb your behavior?”

  Gwyn truly didn’t know—about what a horrible, wretched waste she’d become. “It’s a long story.”

  Gwyn seemed to read her reluctance. “What manner of training is it? Combat?”

  “Right now, it’s a whole lot of balancing and stretching.”

  She nodded toward Nesta’s leg. “Such things are painful?”

  “They are when you’re as out of shape as I am.” A pathetic weakling.

  Two more priestesses passed by, and apparently the presence of one of them was enough to send Gwyn launching to her feet. “Well, I should be getting back to Merrill,” she declared, any trace of solemnity gone. She nodded to the drop into the pit. “Don’t go looking for trouble.”

  Gwyn turned on her heel, blue flashing in her hand.

  The sight of that blue made Nesta blurt, “Why don’t you wear that stone on your head like the others?”

  Gwyn pocketed the gem. “Beca
use I don’t deserve to.”

  “Is this really all we’ll be doing?” Nesta demanded the next morning in the training ring as she rose from what Cassian had called a curtsy-squat. “Balance and stretching?”

  Cassian crossed his arms. “So long as you keep having shit balance, yes.”

  “I don’t fall that often.” Only every few minutes.

  He motioned for her to do another squat. “You still keep your weight on your right leg when you stand. It opens up your hip, and your right foot rolls slightly to the side. Your entire center is off. Until we correct that, you’re not starting anything more intense, no matter how nimble you are on your feet. You’d only injure yourself.”

  Nesta puffed out a breath as she did another squat, her right leg sweeping out behind her left as she ducked low. Fire quivered along her left thigh and knee. How many curtsies had she practiced under her mother’s sharp eye? She’d forgotten they were this demanding. “Like you stand so perfectly.”

  “I do.” Unflinching arrogance laced every word. “I’ve been training since I was a child. I was never given the chance to learn how to stand incorrectly. You have twenty-five years of bad habits to break.”

  She rose from the squat, legs shaking. She had half a mind to call in their bargain and order him to never make her do another squat again. “And you truly enjoy this endless exercising and training?”

  “Two more, and then I’ll tell you.”

  Grumbling, Nesta obeyed. Only because she was tired of being as weak as a mewling kitten, as he’d called her several nights ago.

  When she was done, Cassian said, “Get some water.” The midmorning sun beat down on them relentlessly.

  “I don’t need you to tell me when to drink,” she snapped.

  “Then go ahead and faint.”

  Nesta met his hazel stare, the no-nonsense face, and drank the water. To stop her head spinning, she told herself. When she’d gulped down a glass, Cassian said, “I was born to an unwed female in a settlement that makes Windhaven look like a tolerant, welcoming paradise. She was shunned for bearing a child out of wedlock, and forced to give birth to me alone in a tent in the dead of winter.”

  Horror lurched through her. She’d known Cassian was low-born, but that level of cruelty because of it … “What of your father?”