A Court of Thorns and Roses Page 6

  I stepped forward—only a step. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but being spoken about that way … I kept my mouth shut, but it was enough.

  “Did you enjoy killing my friend, human?” the red-haired one said. “Did you hesitate, or was the hatred in your heart riding you too hard to consider sparing him? It must have been so satisfying for a small mortal thing like you to take him down.”

  The golden-haired one said nothing, but his jaw tightened. As they studied me, I reached for a knife that wasn’t there.

  “Anyway,” the fox-masked one continued, facing his companion again with a sneer. He would likely laugh if I ever drew a weapon on him. “Perhaps there’s a way to—”

  “Lucien,” my captor said quietly, the name echoing with a hint of a snarl. “Behave.”

  Lucien went rigid, but he hopped off the edge of the table and bowed deeply to me. “My apologies, lady.” Another joke at my expense. “I’m Lucien. Courtier and emissary.” He gestured to me with a flourish. “Your eyes are like stars, and your hair like burnished gold.”

  He cocked his head—waiting for me to give him my name. But telling him anything about me, about my family and where I came from—

  “Her name is Feyre,” said the one in charge—the beast. He must have learned my name at my cottage. Those striking green eyes met mine again and then flicked to the door. “Alis will take you to your room. You could use a bath and fresh clothes.”

  I couldn’t decide whether it was an insult or not. There was a firm hand at my elbow, and I flinched. A rotund brown-haired woman in a simple brass bird mask tugged on my arm and inclined her head toward the open door behind us. Her white apron was crisp above her homespun brown dress—a servant. The masks had to be some sort of trend, then.

  If they cared so much about their clothes, about what even their servants wore, maybe they were shallow and vain enough for me to deceive, despite their master’s warrior clothes. Still, they were High Fae. I would have to be clever and quiet and bide my time until I could escape. So I let Alis lead me away. Room—not cell. A small relief, then.

  I’d barely made it a few steps before Lucien growled, “That’s the hand the Cauldron thought to deal us? She brought Andras down? We never should have sent him out there—none of them should have been out there. It was a fool’s mission.” His growl was more bitter than threatening. Could he shape-shift as well? “Maybe we should just take a stand—maybe it’s time to say enough. Dump the girl somewhere, kill her, I don’t care—she’s nothing but a burden here. She’d sooner put a knife in your back than talk to you—or any of us.” I kept my breathing calm, my spine locking, and—

  “No,” the other bit out. “Not until we know for certain that there is no other way will we make a move. And as for the girl, she stays. Unharmed. End of discussion. Her life in that hovel was Hell enough.” My cheeks heated, even while I loosed a tight breath, and I avoided looking at Alis as I felt her eyes slide to me. A hovel—I suppose that’s what our cottage was when compared to this place.

  “Then you’ve got your work cut out for you, old son,” Lucien said. “I’m sure her life will be a fine replacement for Andras’s—maybe she can even train with the others on the border.”

  A snarl of irritation resonated through the air.

  The shining, spotless halls swallowed me up before I could hear more.

  Alis led me through halls of gold and silver until we came to a lavish bedroom on the second level. I’ll admit I didn’t fight that hard when Alis and two other servants—also masked—bathed me, cut my hair, and then plucked me until I felt like a chicken being prepared for dinner. For all I knew, I might very well be their next meal.

  It was only the High Fae’s promise—to live out my days in Prythian instead of dying—that kept me from being sick at the thought. While these faeries also looked human, save for their ears, I’d never learned what the High Fae called their servants. But I didn’t dare to ask, or to speak to them at all, not when just having their hands on me, having them so close was enough to make me focus solely on not trembling.

  Still, I took one look at the velvet turquoise dress Alis had placed on the bed and wrapped my white dressing gown tightly around me, sinking into a chair and pleading for my old clothes to be returned. Alis refused, and when I begged again, trying my best to sound pathetic and sad and pitiful, she stormed out. I hadn’t worn a dress in years. I wasn’t about to start, not when escape was my main priority. I wouldn’t be able to move freely in a gown.

  Bundled in my robe, I sat for minute after minute, the chattering of small birds in the garden beyond the windows the only sounds. No screaming, no clashing weapons, no hint of any slaughter or torture.

  The bedroom was larger than our entire cottage. Its walls were pale green, delicately sketched with patterns of gold, and the moldings were golden as well. I might have thought it tacky had the ivory furniture and rugs not complemented it so well. The gigantic bed was of a similar color scheme, and the curtains that hung from the towering headboard drifted in the faint breeze from the open windows. My dressing gown was of the finest silk, edged with lace—simple and exquisite enough that I ran a finger along the lapels.

  The few stories I’d heard had been wrong—or five hundred years of separation had muddled them. Yes, I was still prey, still born weak and useless compared to them, but this place was … peaceful. Calm. Unless that was an illusion, too, and the loophole in the Treaty was a lie—a trick to set me at ease before they destroyed me. The High Fae liked to play with their food.

  The door creaked, and Alis returned—a bundle of clothing in her hands. She lifted a sodden grayish shirt. “You want to wear this?” I gaped at the holes in the sides and sleeves. “It fell apart the moment the laundresses put it in water.” She held up a few scraps of brown. “Here’s what’s left of your pants.”

  I clamped down on the curse building in my chest. She might be a servant, but she could easily kill me, too.

  “Will you wear the dress now?” she demanded. I knew I should get up, should agree, but I slumped farther into my seat. Alis stared me down for a moment before leaving again.

  She returned with trousers and a tunic that fit me well, both of them rich with color. A bit fancy, but I didn’t complain when I donned the white shirt, nor when I buttoned the dark blue tunic and ran my hands over the scratchy, golden thread embroidered on the lapels. It had to cost a fortune in itself—and it tugged at that useless part of my mind that admired lovely and strange and colorful things.

  I was too young to remember much before my father’s downfall. He’d tolerated me enough to allow me to loiter about his offices, and sometimes even explained various goods and their worth, the details of which I’d long since forgotten. My time in his offices—full of the scents of exotic spices and the music of foreign tongues—made up the majority of my few happy memories. I didn’t need to know the worth of everything in this room to understand that the emerald curtains alone—silk, with gold velvet—could have fed us for a lifetime.

  A chill scuttled down my spine. It had been days since I’d left. The venison would be running low already.

  Alis herded me into a low-backed chair before the darkened fireplace, and I didn’t fight back as she ran a comb through my hair and began braiding it.

  “You’re hardly more than skin and bones,” she said, her fingers luxurious against my scalp.

  “Winter does that to poor mortals,” I said, fighting to keep the sharpness from my tone.

  She huffed a laugh. “If you’re wise, you’ll keep your mouth shut and your ears open. It’ll do you more good here than a loose tongue. And keep your wits about you—even your senses will try to betray you here.”

  I tried not to cringe at the warning. Alis went on. “Some folk are bound to be upset about Andras. Yet if you ask me, Andras was a good sentinel, but he knew what he would face when he crossed the wall—knew he’d likely find trouble. And the others understand the terms of the Treaty, too—even if th
ey might resent your presence here, thanks to the mercy of our master. So keep your head down, and none of them will bother you. Though Lucien—he could do with someone snapping at him, if you’ve the courage for it.”

  I didn’t, and when I went to ask more about whom I should try to avoid, she had already finished with my hair and opened the door to the hall.

  Chapter 7

  The golden-haired High Fae and Lucien were lounging at the table when Alis returned me to the dining room. They no longer had plates before them, but still sipped from golden goblets. Real gold—not paint or foil. Our mismatched cutlery flashed through my mind as I paused in the middle of the room. Such wealth—such staggering wealth, when we had nothing.

  A half-wild beast, Nesta had called me. But compared to him, compared to this place, compared to the elegant, easy way they held their goblets, the way the golden-haired one had called me human … we were all half-wild beasts to the High Fae. Even if they were the ones who could don fur and claws.

  Food still remained on the table, the array of spices lingering in the air, beckoning. I was starving, my head unnervingly light.

  The golden-haired High Fae’s mask gleamed with the last rays of the afternoon sunshine. “Before you ask again: the food is safe for you to eat.” He pointed to the chair at the other end of the table. No sign of his claws. When I didn’t move, he sighed sharply. “What do you want, then?”

  I said nothing. To eat, flee, save my family …

  Lucien drawled from his seat along the length of the table, “I told you so, Tamlin.” He flicked a glance toward his friend. “Your skills with females have definitely become rusty in recent decades.”

  Tamlin. He glowered at Lucien, shifting in his seat. I tried not to stiffen at the other bit of information Lucien had given away. Decades.

  Tamlin didn’t look much older than me, but his kind was immortal. He could be hundreds of years old. Thousands. My mouth dried up as I carefully studied their strange, masked faces—unearthly, primal, and imperious. Like immovable gods or feral courtiers.

  “Well,” Lucien said, his remaining russet eye fixed on me, “you don’t look half as bad now. A relief, I suppose, since you’re to live with us. Though the tunic isn’t as pretty as a dress.”

  Wolves ready to pounce—that’s what they were, just like their friend. I was all too aware of my diction, of the very breath I took as I said, “I’d prefer not to wear that dress.”

  “And why not?” Lucien crooned.

  It was Tamlin who answered for me. “Because killing us is easier in pants.”

  I kept my face blank, willed my heart to calm as I said, “Now that I’m here, what … what do you plan to do with me?”

  Lucien snorted, but Tamlin said with a snarl of annoyance, “Just sit down.”

  An empty seat had been pulled out at the end of the table. So many foods, piping hot and wafting those enticing spices. The servants had probably brought out new food while I’d washed. So much wasted. I clenched my hands into fists.

  “We’re not going to bite.” Lucien’s white teeth gleamed in a way that suggested otherwise. I avoided his gaze, avoided that strange, animated metal eye that focused on me as I inched to my seat and sat down.

  Tamlin rose, stalking around the table—closer and closer, each movement smooth and lethal, a predator blooded with power. It was an effort to keep still—especially as he picked up a dish, brought it over to me, and piled some meat and sauce on my plate.

  I said quietly, “I can serve myself.” Anything, anything to keep him well away from me.

  Tamlin paused, so close that one swipe of those claws lurking under his skin could rip my throat out. That was why the leather baldric bore no weapons: why use them when you were a weapon yourself? “It’s an honor for a human to be served by a High Fae,” he said roughly.

  I swallowed hard. He continued piling various foods on my plate, stopping only when it was heaping with meat and sauce and bread, and then filled my glass with pale sparkling wine. I loosed a breath as he prowled back to his seat, though he could probably hear it.

  I wanted nothing more than to bury my face in the plate and then eat my way down the table, but I pinned my hands beneath my thighs and stared at the two faeries.

  They watched me, too closely to be casual. Tamlin straightened a bit and said, “You look … better than before.”

  Was that a compliment? I could have sworn Lucien gave Tamlin an encouraging nod.

  “And your hair is … clean.”

  Perhaps it was my raging hunger making me hallucinate the piss-poor attempt at flattery. Still, I leaned back and kept my words calm and quiet, the way I might speak to any other predator. “You’re High Fae—faerie nobility?”

  Lucien coughed and looked to Tamlin. “You can take that question.”

  “Yes,” Tamlin said, frowning—as if searching for anything to say to me. He settled on merely: “We are.”

  Fine. A man—faerie—of few words. I had killed his friend, was an unwanted guest. I wouldn’t want to talk to me, either.

  “What do you plan to do with me now that I’m here?”

  Tamlin’s eyes didn’t leave my face. “Nothing. Do whatever you want.”

  “So I’m not to be your slave?” I dared ask.

  Lucien choked on his wine. But Tamlin didn’t smile. “I don’t keep slaves.”

  I ignored the release of tightness in my chest at that. “But what am I to do with my life here?” I pressed. “Do you—do you wish me to earn my keep? To work?” A stupid question, if he hadn’t considered it, but … but I had to know.

  Tamlin stiffened. “What you do with your life isn’t my problem.”

  Lucien pointedly cleared his throat, and Tamlin flashed him a glare. After an exchanged look I couldn’t read, Tamlin sighed and said, “Don’t you have any … interests?”

  “No.” Not entirely true, but I wasn’t about to explain the painting to him. Not when he was apparently having a great deal of trouble just talking to me civilly.

  Lucien muttered, “So typically human.”

  Tamlin’s mouth quirked to the side. “Do whatever you want with your time. Just stay out of trouble.”

  “So you truly mean for me to stay here forever.” What I meant was: So I’m to stay in this luxury while my family starves to death?

  “I didn’t make the rules,” Tamlin said tersely.

  “My family is starving,” I said. I didn’t mind begging—not for this. I’d given my word, and held to that word for so long that I was nothing and no one without it. “Please let me go. There must be—must be some other loophole out of the Treaty’s rules—some other way to atone.”

  “Atone?” Lucien said. “Have you even apologized yet?”

  Apparently, all attempts to flatter me were dead and gone. So I looked Lucien right in his remaining russet eye and said, “I’m sorry.”

  Lucien leaned back in his chair. “How did you kill him? Was it a bloody fight, or just cold-blooded murder?”

  My spine stiffened. “I shot him with an ash arrow. And then an ordinary arrow through the eye. He didn’t put up a fight. After the first shot, he just stared at me.”

  “Yet you killed him anyway—though he made no move to attack you. And then you skinned him,” Lucien hissed.

  “Enough, Lucien,” Tamlin said to his courtier with a snarl. “I don’t want to hear details.” He turned to me, ancient and brutal and unyielding.

  I spoke before he could say anything. “My family won’t last a month without me.” Lucien chuckled, and I gritted my teeth. “Do you know what it’s like to be hungry?” I demanded, anger rising to devour any common sense. “Do you know what it’s like to not know when your next meal will be?”

  Tamlin’s jaw tightened. “Your family is alive and well-cared for. You think so low of faeries that you believe I’d take their only source of income and nourishment and not replace it?”

  I straightened. “You swear it?” Even if faeries couldn’t lie, I had to
hear it.

  A low, incredulous laugh. “On everything that I am and possess.”

  “Why not tell me that when we left the cottage?”

  “Would you have believed me? Do you even believe me now?” Tamlin’s claws embedded in the arms of his chair.

  “Why should I trust a word you say? You’re all masters of spinning your truths to your own advantage.”

  “Some would say it’s unwise to insult a Fae in his home,” Tamlin ground out. “Some would say you should be grateful for me finding you before another one of my kind came to claim the debt, for sparing your life and then offering you the chance to live in comfort.”

  I shot to my feet, wisdom be damned, and was about to kick back my chair when invisible hands clapped on my arms and shoved me back into the seat.

  “Do not do whatever it was you were contemplating,” Tamlin said.

  I went still as the tang of magic seared my nose. I tried to twist in the chair, testing the invisible bonds. But my arms were secured, and my back was pressed into the wood so hard that it ached. I glanced at the knife beside my plate. I should have gone for it first—futile effort or no.

  “I’m going to warn you once,” Tamlin said too softly. “Only once, and then it’s on you, human. I don’t care if you go live somewhere else in Prythian. But if you cross the wall, if you flee, your family will no longer be cared for.”

  His words were like a stone to the head. If I escaped, if I even tried to run, I might very well doom my family. And even if I dared risk it … even if I succeeded in reaching them, where would I take them? I couldn’t stow my sisters away on a ship—and once we arrived somewhere else, somewhere safe, we’d have nowhere to live. But for him to hold my family’s well-being against me, to throw away their survival if I stepped out of line …

  I opened my mouth, but his snarl rattled the glasses. “Is that not a fair bargain? And if you flee, then you might not be so lucky with whoever comes to retrieve you next.” His claws slipped back under his knuckles. “The food is not enchanted, or drugged, and it will be your own damn fault if you faint. So you’re going to sit at this table and eat, Feyre. And Lucien will do his best to be polite.” He threw a pointed look in his direction. Lucien shrugged.