His mouth tightened, and he swallowed once before he said, “Hybern was looking for the Cauldron back then—for the pieces of its feet. One was hidden at the temple in Sangravah, its power used to fuel its priestesses’ gifts for millennia. Hybern found out, and sent a unit of their deadliest and cruelest warriors to retrieve it.” Cold rage filled his face. “They slaughtered most of the priestesses for sport. And raped any they found to their liking.”
Horror, icy and deep, sluiced through her. Gwyn had—
“You met one of them,” he asked, “in the library?”
She nodded, unable to find the words.
He closed his eyes, as if reeling his rage back into himself. “I heard that Mor had brought one in. Azriel was the one who made it out there first, and he killed any of the Hybern soldiers left, but by that point …” He shuddered. “I don’t know what became of the other survivors. But I’m glad one wound up here. Safe, I mean. With people who understand, and wish to help.”
“So am I,” Nesta said quietly.
She rose on surprisingly loose legs and blinked down at them. “They don’t hurt as much.”
“Stretching,” Cassian said, as if that were answer enough. “Never forget the stretching.”
The Spring Court made Cassian itch. It had little to do with the bastard who ruled it, he’d realized, but rather the fact that the lands lay in perpetual spring. Which meant plumes of pollen drifting by, setting his nose to running and skin to itching, until he was certain that at least a dozen insects were slithering all over him.
“Stop scratching,” Rhys said without looking at him as they strode through a blooming apple orchard. No wings to be seen today.
Cassian lowered his hand from his chest. “I can’t help it if this place makes my skin crawl.”
Rhys snorted, gesturing to one of the blossoming trees above them, petals falling thick as snow. “The feared general, felled by seasonal allergies.”
Cassian gave an unnecessarily loud sniffle, earning a full chuckle from Rhys. Good. When he’d met his brother half an hour ago, Rhys’s eyes had been distant, his face solemn.
Rhys halted in the middle of the orchard, located to the north of Tamlin’s once-lovely estate.
The afternoon sun warmed Cassian’s head, and if his entire body weren’t itching so damned much, he might have lain on the velvety grass and sunned his wings. “I’d peel my skin off right now, if it’d stop the itching.”
“There’s a sight I’d like to see,” a voice said behind them, and Cassian didn’t bother to look pleasant as they found Eris standing at the base of a tree five feet away. Amid the pink and white blossoms, the cold-faced Autumn Court heir looked truly faerie—as if he’d stepped out of the tree, and his one and only master was the earth itself.
“Eris,” Rhys purred, sliding his hands into his pockets. “A pleasure.”
Eris nodded at Rhys, red hair dappled in the sunlight leaking through the blossom-heavy branches. “I only have a few minutes.”
“You asked for this meeting,” Cassian said, crossing his arms. “So out with it.”
Eris shot him a look laced with distaste. “I’m sure you’ve reported my offer to Rhysand.”
“He did,” Rhys said, dark hair ruffled by a soft, sighing breeze. As if even the wind itself loved to touch him. “I didn’t appreciate the threats.”
Eris shrugged. “I merely wanted to make myself clear.”
“Spit it out, Eris,” Cassian said. One more minute here, and the itching would drive him mad.
He wished anyone else could have come in his stead. But he’d been appointed by Rhys to deal with the bastard. General to general. Eris had asked for the meeting this morning, naming this location as neutral ground. Thankfully, its lord had no interest in patrolling who entered these lands.
Eris kept his eyes on Rhys. “I assume your shadowsinger is off doing what he does best.”
Rhys said nothing, revealed nothing. Cassian followed his lead.
Eris went on with a shrug, “We are wasting our time, gathering information rather than acting.” His amber eyes gleamed in the shade of the apple tree. “Regardless of the death-lord pulling their strings, if the human queens intend to be a thorn in our sides, we could simply deal with them now. All of them. My father would be forced to abandon his plans. And I’m sure you could invent some reason that has nothing to do with me or what I’ve told you to excuse their … removal.”
Cassian blurted, “You want us to take out the queens?”
It was Eris’s turn to say nothing.
Rhys, too, remained silent.
Cassian threw them an incredulous look. “We kill those queens and we’ll be in a greater mess than ever. Wars have been started for less. Killing even one queen, let alone four, would be a catastrophe. Everyone would know who’d done it, regardless of the reasons we’d invent to justify it.”
Rhys angled his head. “Only if we’re sloppy.”
“You’re kidding,” Cassian said to his brother.
“Half-kidding,” Rhys said, throwing him a dry smile. It didn’t quite meet his eyes, though. A grave distance lurked there. But Rhys turned to Eris. “Tempting as it may be to take the easy way out, I agree with my brother. It’s a simple solution to our current problems, and to thwarting your father, but it would create a conflict far greater than any we’re anticipating.” Rhys surveyed Eris. “You know that already.”
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.
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.”