“My cousin.” Emerie cringed. “His father is my uncle. On my father’s side.” She added before Nesta could ask, “Bellius is a young, arrogant idiot. He’s due to participate in the Blood Rite this spring, and his arrogance has only grown these past months as he anticipates becoming a true warrior. He’s skilled enough that he got placed on a scouting unit to the continent—and just returned to celebrate his accomplishment, apparently.” Emerie wiped at an invisible speck of dirt on the counter. “I didn’t expect him to be drunk midday, though. That’s a new low for him.” Color stained her cheeks. “I’m sorry you had to witness it.”
Nesta shrugged. “Dealing with drunk fools is my specialty.”
Emerie kept fiddling with the imaginary spot on the counter. “Our fathers were two of a kind. They believed children should be harshly disciplined for any infraction. There was little room for mercy or understanding.”
Nesta pursed her lips. “I know the type.” Her mother’s mother had been the same way before she’d died of a deep-rooted cough that had turned into a deadly infection. Nesta had been seven when the stern-faced dame who had insisted on being called Grandmamma had beaten her palms raw with a ruler for missteps in her dancing lessons. Worthless, clumsy girl. You’re a waste of my time. Maybe this will help you remember to pay attention to my orders.
Nesta had only felt relief when the old beast had died. Elain, who’d been spared the cruelties of Grandmamma’s tutelage, had wept and dutifully laid flowers at her grave—one soon joined by their mother’s stone marker. Feyre had been too young to understand, but Nesta had never bothered to lay flowers for her grandmamma. Not when Nesta bore a scar near her left thumb from one of the woman’s nastier punishments. Nesta had only left flowers for her mother, whose grave she had visited more often than she cared to admit.
She hadn’t once visited her father’s grave outside Velaris.
“Are you all right?” Nesta asked Emerie at last. “Will Bellius return?”
“No,” Emerie said, shaking her head. “I mean, I’m fine. But no—he’s a member of the Ironcrest war-band. Their lands are a few hours’ flight from here. He won’t return anytime soon.” She shrugged. “I get these little visits from my uncle’s family every now and then. Nothing I can’t handle. Though Bellius was a new one. I guess they think he’s adult enough now to bully me.” Nesta opened her mouth, but Emerie offered her another half smile and changed the subject. “You look well. Far healthier than when I saw you … What was it now? Almost three weeks ago.” She gave Nesta an assessing glance. “You never came back.”
“We moved our training to Velaris,” Nesta explained.
“I was about to write to you before Bellius interrupted me. I asked about making leathers with fleece inside.” Emerie leaned her forearms on the immaculate counter. “It can be done, but it’s not cheap.”
“Then it’s beyond my means, but thank you for finding out anyway.”
“I could order it and let you pay it off as you’re able.”
It was a generous offer. Far beyond the kindness anyone had ever shown Nesta in the human realm, when her father had been trying to sell his wood carvings for a few pitiful coppers.
Only Feyre had kept them fed and clothed, earning scant amounts for the pelts and meat she hunted. She’d kept them alive. The last time she’d hunted for them, the food had run out the day before. If Feyre hadn’t returned home with meat that night, they either would have had to starve to death or beg in the village.
Nesta had told herself that day that Tomas would take her in, if necessary. Maybe even Elain, too. But his family had been hateful, with too many mouths to feed already. His father would have refused to feed her, without question. She’d been prepared to offer the only thing she had to barter to Tomas, if it would have kept Elain from starving. Would have sold her body on the street to anyone who’d pay her enough to feed her sister. Her body had meant nothing to her—nothing, she’d told herself as she’d felt her options closing in. Elain meant everything.
But Feyre had come back with that food. And then vanished over the wall.
Three days afterward, Nesta broke it off with Tomas. Enraged, he’d launched himself at her, pinning her against the enormous woodpile stacked along the barn wall. Spiteful whore, he’d growled. You think you’re better than me? Acting like a queen when you haven’t got shit. She’d never forget the sound of her dress tearing, the greed in his eyes as his hands pawed at her skirts, trying to raise them as he fumbled with the buckle on his belt.
Only pure, undiluted terror and survival instinct had saved her. She’d let him get close, let him think her strength had failed, and then clamped her teeth down on his ear. And ripped.
He’d screamed, but he’d loosened his grip on her—just enough that she’d broken free and scrambled through the snow, spitting his blood out of her mouth, and did not stop running until she’d reached the cottage.
And then word had come of their father’s ships: found, with all the wealth intact.
Nesta knew it was a lie. The trunks of jewels and gold had not come from that doomed shipment, but from Tamlin, payment for the human woman he’d stolen away. To help the family he’d doomed to die without Feyre’s hunting.
Nesta shook off the memory. “It’s all right. But thank you.”
Emerie rubbed her long, slender hands together. “It’s freezing, and I’m about to take my lunch break. Would you like to join me?”
Beyond Cassian, no one had invited her to dine in a long time. She’d given them no reason to. But there it was: an honest, simple offer. From someone who had no idea how terrible she was.
Having lunch with Emerie was an indulgence; it was only a matter of time until the female learned more about Nesta. Until she heard every horrible thing, and then the invitations would stop. Had she been any better than Bellius, drunk and simmering with hatred for months? If Emerie knew, she’d kick her out of this shop, too.
But for now, neither rumor nor truth had reached Emerie.
“I would like that,” Nesta said, and meant it.
The back room of Emerie’s shop was as immaculate as the front, though crates of extra stock were stacked against one wall. Two windows looked out onto a snow-covered garden, and beyond that, the nearest mountain peak squatted, blocking the gray sky with its rocky bulk.
A small kitchen lay to the right, little more than a hearth and a counter and a small worktable. A few wooden chairs sat around it, and Nesta realized the table was also the dining area. A place setting had been laid there for one person.
“Just you?” Nesta asked as Emerie went to the wood counter and gathered a platter of roast beef and a dish of roasted carrots. She set them on the table before Nesta and grabbed a loaf of bread, along with a bowl of butter.
“Just me.” Emerie opened a cabinet to retrieve a second place setting. “No mate or husband to bother me.”
She spoke a bit tensely, like there was more to it than that, but Nesta said, “Me neither.”
Emerie threw her a wry look. “What about that handsome General Cassian?”
Nesta blocked out the memory of his head between her thighs, his tongue at her entrance, sliding into her. “Not a chance,” Nesta said, but Emerie’s eyes glimmered with knowing.
“Well, it’s nice to meet another female who’s not obsessed with marriage and baby-making,” Emerie said, sitting at the table and gesturing for Nesta to do the same. She’d put some roast beef, carrots, and bread onto Nesta’s plate, and slid the bowl of butter to her. “It’s cold, but it’s meant to be eaten that way. I usually stop for lunch only long enough to feed myself.”
Nesta dug in and grunted. “It’s delicious.” She took another bite. “Did you make this?”
“Who else would? We don’t have any sort of food shops here except the butcher.” Emerie pointed with her fork to the garden beyond the building. “I grow my own vegetables. These carrots came from that garden.”
Nesta took a bite. “They have a lovely flavor.” Butter and thyme and something bright …
“It’s all in the spices. Which are in short supply around here, unfortunately. Illyrians don’t particularly know or care about them.”
“My father used to be a merchant,” Nesta said, a chasm yawning open in her at the words. She cleared her throat. “He traded spices from all over the world. I can still remember the smell in his offices—it was like a thousand different personalities all crammed into one space.”
Feyre had loved to hang about their father’s office, more fascinated in the trade than what Nesta had been taught was acceptable for a wealthy girl. Feyre had always been that way: completely uninterested in the rules that governed their lives, uninterested in becoming a true lady who would help advance their family’s fortunes through an advantageous marriage.
They had rarely agreed on anything. And those visits to their father’s offices had resulted in a simmering resentment between them. Feyre had tried to get her interested, had shown her so many rarities to tempt her. But Nesta had barely listened to her sister’s explanations, mostly eyeing up their father’s business partners for whether their sons might be a good match. Feyre had been disgusted. It had made Nesta even more determined.
“Did you travel with him?”
“No, my two sisters and I remained home. It wasn’t appropriate for us to travel the world.”
“I always forget how similar human ideas of propriety are to the Illyrians’.” Emerie took another bite. “Would you have wanted to see the world, if you could?”
“It was half a world, wasn’t it? With the wall in place.”
“Still better than nothing.”
Nesta chuckled. “You’re right.” She considered Emerie’s question. If her father had offered to bring them on one of his ships, to let them see strange and distant shores, would they have gone? Elain had always wanted to visit the continent to study the tulips and other famed flowers, but her imagination had stretched no further. Feyre had talked once about the glorious art in the continent’s museums and private estates. But that was all the western edge of it. Beyond that, the continent was vast. And to the south, another continent sprawled. Would she have gone?
“I would have put up a fight,” Nesta said at last, “but in the end, I’d have yielded to curiosity.”
“Do you still have any family in the human lands?”
“My mother died when I was twelve, and my father … He did not survive the most recent war. Their parents died during my childhood. I have no kin on my father’s side, and my mother had one cousin, who lives on the continent and conveniently forgot about us when we fell on hard times.”
Nesta had written letter after letter when they’d fallen into poverty, begging her cousin Urstin to take them in. They’d gone unanswered, and then the money for postage had run out. Nesta still wondered if their cousin had ever learned what had become of the relatives she’d ignored and left to die.
Nesta asked carefully, “What about your family?” She’d seen and heard enough from Bellius to have a general idea, but she couldn’t help asking.
“Mother died giving birth to me, and my elder brother died in a skirmish between war-bands ten years before I was born. My father died during the war with Hybern.” The words were stiff, cold. “I do not bother with the rest of my kin, though my father’s family makes it a point to try to claim this store and his wealth as their own.”
“They’re not entitled to it, are they?”
“No. Rhysand changed the inheritance laws centuries ago to include females, but my uncles don’t seem to care. They still show up every now and then to bother me like Bellius did. They believe a woman should not run her own business, that I should wed a male in this village and leave the store to them.” She grimaced. “They’re vultures.”
Emerie had finished her lunch and poured some tea for each of them. “It’s a shame that you won’t be coming up here very often. I could use another sensible person to talk to.”
Nesta blinked at the compliment, the bit of truth it revealed about Emerie: she was unhappy in this place. All those questions about traveling … “Would you ever move away?”
Emerie choked on a laugh. “And go where? At least here I know people. I’ve never left this village. Never even been up to that mountaintop over there.” She gestured to the window, and Nesta made it a point not to look at her wings.
Nesta sipped from her tea. It was a strong brew, with a bit of a bite. She must have made a face because Emerie explained quietly, “Tea is in short supply here—a luxury that I indulge. But to spread it out, I add a little willow bark to it. It also helps with some of my … pains.”
“What pains?”
“My wings sometimes hurt. The scars, I mean. Like an old wound.”
Nesta kept her pity tamped down. She finished her tea right as Emerie did, and said, “Thank you for the food.” Rising, she picked up her plate.
“I’ll get it.” Emerie hustled around the table. “Don’t trouble yourself.”
She moved with an easy grace, like someone confident in her body.
Nesta drifted to the front of the shop, but then said, at last voicing her reason for visiting, “The training I’m doing with Cassian in the House of Wind is open to anyone—any female, I mean. Females who have experienced … hardship.” Emerie’s wings, her horrible family, were not the same as what Gwyn had endured, but everyone’s traumas wore different masks. “We train each morning, from nine to eleven, though we sometimes run until noon. You’re welcome to come.”
Emerie stiffened. “I have no way of getting there, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Someone could come retrieve you, and bring you back.” Nesta didn’t know who, but if she had to ask Rhys himself, she would.
“It’s a generous offer, but I have my shop to run.” Emerie’s face yielded nothing, as battle-hardened as Azriel’s. “I’m not interested in a warrior’s training. I doubt it would win me patrons in this town to have them know I’m doing such a thing.”
“You don’t seem like a coward.”
The words rang between them.
Emerie bit her lip. But Nesta shrugged. “Send word if you wish to join us. The offer stands.”
Cassian hated to admit it, but for a spoiled, soulless asshole, Eris had his uses. Mostly one: the bubble of heat that warmed them against the chill winds wending through the pines of the Illyrian Steppes. Some fire magic to warm their bones.
“The Dread Trove,” Eris mused, surveying the heavy gray sky that threatened snow. “I’ve never heard of such items. Though it does not surprise me.”
“Does your father know of them?” The Steppes weren’t neutral ground, but they were empty enough that Eris had finally deigned to accept Cassian’s request to meet here. After taking days to reply to his message.
“No, thank the Mother,” Eris said, crossing his arms. “He would have told me if he did. But if the Trove has a sentience like you suggested, if it wants to be found … I fear that it might also be reaching out to others as well. Not just Briallyn and Koschei.”
Beron in possession of the Trove would be a disaster. He’d join the ranks of the King of Hybern. Could become something terrible and deathless like Lanthys. “So Briallyn failed to inform Beron about her quest for the Trove when he visited her?”
“Apparently, she doesn’t trust him, either,” Eris said, face full of contemplation. “I’ll need to think on that.”
“Don’t tell him about it,” Cassian warned.
Eris shook his head. “You misunderstand me. I’m not going to tell him a damned thing. But the fact that Briallyn is actively hiding her larger plans from him …” He nodded, more to himself. “Is this why Morrigan is back in Vallahan? To learn if they know about the Trove?”
“Maybe,” Cassian lied. She was still trying to convince them to sign the new treaty. But Eris didn’t need to know that.
“Here I was,” Eris said, “thinking Morrigan was going there so often to hide from me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s only coincidence.” He wasn’t sure if the lie held.
“Why shouldn’t I flatter myself with such thoughts? You flatter yourself, thinking you’re more than a mongrel bastard.”
Cassian’s Siphons glinted atop his hands, and Eris smirked at the evidence that he’d landed the blow. But Cassian forced himself to say calmly, “That’s all the information I have.”
“You’ve given me a great deal to consider.”
“Make sure you keep it quiet,” Cassian warned again.
Eris winked before winnowing away.
Alone in the howling wild, Cassian blew out a breath. Embraced the chill winds, the pine-fresh scent, and willed it to wash away his irritation and discomfort.
But it lingered. For some reason, it lingered.