“Please refrain,” the king said, “from getting any stupid ideas, Rhysand.” He smiled at me. “If any of you interfere, the shadowsinger dies. Pity about the other brute’s wings.” He gave my sisters a mockery of a bow. “Ladies, eternity awaits. Prove to their Majesties the Cauldron is safe for … strong-willed individuals.”
I shook my head, unable to breathe, to think a way out of it—
Elain was shaking, sobbing, as she was hauled forward. Toward the Cauldron.
Nesta began thrashing against the men that held her.
Tamlin said, “Stop.”
The king did no such thing.
Lucien, beside Tamlin, again put a hand on his sword. “Stop this.”
Nesta was bellowing at the guards, at the king, as Elain yielded step after step toward that Cauldron. As the king waved his hand, and liquid filled it to the brim. No, no—
The queens only watched, stone-faced. And Rhys and Mor, separated from me by those guards, did not dare to even shift a muscle.
Tamlin spat at the king, “This is not part of our deal. Stop this now.”
“I don’t care,” the king said simply.
Tamlin launched himself at the throne, as if he’d rip him to shreds.
That white-hot magic slammed into him, shoving him to the ground. Leashing him.
Tamlin strained against the collar of light on his neck, around his wrists. His golden power flared—to no avail. I tore at the fist still gripping my own, sliced at it, over and over—
Lucien staggered a step forward as Elain was gripped between two guards and hoisted up. She began kicking then, weeping while her feet slammed into the sides of the Cauldron as if she’d push off it, as if she’d knock it down—
“That is enough.” Lucien surged for Elain, for the Cauldron.
And the king’s power leashed him, too. On the ground beside Tamlin, his single eye wide, Lucien had the good sense to look horrified as he glanced between Elain and the High Lord.
“Please,” I begged the king, who motioned Elain to be shoved into the water. “Please, I will do anything, I will give you anything.” I shot to my feet, stepping away from where Cassian lay prostrate, and looked to the queens. “Please—you do not need proof, I am proof that it works. Jurian is proof it is safe.”
The ancient queen said, “You are a thief, and a liar. You conspired with our sister. Your punishment should be the same as hers. Consider this a gift instead.”
Elain’s foot hit the water, and she screamed—screamed in terror that hit me so deep I began sobbing. “Please,” I said to none of them.
Nesta was still fighting, still roaring through her gag.
Elain, who Nesta would have killed and whored and stolen for. Elain, who had been gentle and sweet. Elain, who was to marry a lord’s son who hated faeries …
The guards shoved my sister into the Cauldron in a single movement.
My cry hadn’t finished sounding before Elain’s head went under.
She did not come up.
Nesta’s screaming was the only sound. Cassian blindly lurched toward it—toward her, moaning in pain.
The King of Hybern bowed slightly to the queens. “Behold.”
Rhys, a wall of guards still cleaving us, curled his fingers into a fist. But he did not move, as Mor and I did not dare move, not with Azriel’s life dangling in the king’s grasp.
And as if it had been tipped by invisible hands, the Cauldron turned on its side.
More water than seemed possible dumped out in a cascade. Black, smoke-coated water.
And Elain, as if she’d been thrown by a wave, washed onto the stones facedown.
Her legs were so pale—so delicate. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen them bare.
The queens pushed forward. Alive, she had to be alive, had to have wanted to live—
Elain sucked in a breath, her fine-boned back rising, her wet nightgown nearly sheer.
And as she rose from the ground onto her elbows, the gag in place, as she twisted to look at me—
Nesta began roaring again.
Pale skin started to glow. Her face had somehow become more beautiful—infinitely beautiful, and her ears … Elain’s ears were now pointed beneath her sodden hair.
The queens gasped. And for a moment, all I could think of was my father. What he would do, what he would say, when his most beloved daughter looked at him with a Fae face.
“So we can survive,” the dark-haired youngest breathed, eyes bright.
I fell to my knees, the guards not bothering to grab me as I sobbed. What he’d done, what he’d done—
“The hellcat now, if you’ll be so kind,” the King of Hybern said.
I whipped my head to Nesta as she went silent. The Cauldron righted itself.
Cassian again stirred, slumping on the floor—but his hand twitched. Toward Nesta.
Elain was still shivering on the wet stones, her nightgown shoved up to her thighs, her small breasts fully visible beneath the soaked fabric. Guards snickered.
Lucien snarled at the king over the bite of the magic at his throat, “Don’t just leave her on the damned floor—”
There was a flare of light, and a scrape, and then Lucien was stalking toward Elain, freed of his restraints. Tamlin remained leashed on the ground, a gag of white, iridescent magic in his mouth now. But his eyes were on Lucien as—
As Lucien took off his jacket, kneeling before Elain. She cringed away from the coat, from him—
The guards hauled Nesta toward the Cauldron.
There were different kinds of torture, I realized.
There was the torture that I had endured, that Rhys had endured.
And then there was this.
The torture that Rhys had worked so hard those fifty years to avoid; the nightmares that haunted him. To be unable to move, to fight … while our loved ones were broken. My eyes met with those of my mate. Agony rippled in that violet stare—rage and guilt and utter agony. The mirror to my own.
Nesta fought every step of the way.
She did not make it easy for them. She clawed and kicked and bucked.
And it was not enough.
And we were not enough to save her.
I watched as she was hoisted up. Elain remained shuddering on the ground, Lucien’s coat draped around her. She did not look at the Cauldron behind her, not as Nesta’s thrashing feet slammed into the water.
Cassian stirred again, his shredded wings twitching and spraying blood, his muscles quivering. At Nesta’s shouts, her raging, his eyes fluttered open, glazed and unseeing, an answer to some call in his blood, a promise he’d made her. But pain knocked him under again.