“Peace?” Briallyn laughed. “What peace can I have now?” She waved a hand down at herself. “What I want is retribution. What I want is power. What I want is the Trove. So I made sure you knew it, too. Made sure you became my unwitting partner in collecting the items of power from this godsforsaken territory. And I know there’s only one way you’ll yield them to me. One person for whom you’d do so.” A smile toward Cassian. “Your mate.”
“I don’t have the Trove here.”
“You can summon it. The objects will answer to you, no matter the wards on them. And you will hand them over to me.”
“And then you’ll kill us both?”
“And then I shall Make myself young again. I shall leave you both untouched.”
Nesta scented the lie.
Cassian grunted out, “Don’t.”
Briallyn shot him a surprised look, and his mouth shut. He trembled, but remained standing still. Yet the glassiness in his gaze had cleared.
“So,” Briallyn said, “you will trade me the Trove for your mate’s life. You are so thoroughly Fae now, Nesta Archeron. You would allow the world to turn to ash and ruin before you let your mate die.” She frowned with distaste at the bodies around them, the blood. “Summon the Trove, and let us be done with this messy business.”
Nesta couldn’t stop her shaking. To give Briallyn the Trove, if she could even summon it … “No.”
“Then I shall have to try to convince you.”
Briallyn snapped her fingers at Cassian, and Nesta had half a second to turn before he was upon her.
Panic and rage shone in his eyes, but Nesta could do nothing, absolutely nothing, as he barreled into her, knocking her to the ground. Pinning her there, an arm at her throat, the weight of him, once so intimate and loving, now the thing that would hold her here, hurt her—
Pleading filled his face, utter anguish, as he fought the Crown. Fought it and lost.
“It will destroy him, of course, to kill his own mate,” Briallyn said. “You will be dead, and you will die knowing you doom him to a life of misery.”
Cassian’s free arm shook as he pulled the knife he’d killed Bellius with from his belt. Brought it toward her.
“You kill me,” Nesta gasped, “and you don’t get the Trove. You’ll never find it.”
“There are others in your court as delusional as you are. They’ll get it for me one way or another, with the right incentive. Granted, I’ll need your blood to unlock the wards on the Trove. I saw that, too, you know. When you so foolishly held the Harp in the Prison. But I suppose killing you will provide plenty of the blood required.” Briallyn nodded to Cassian. “Get her up.”
Nesta didn’t fight as he hauled her to her feet. Held the knife against her throat. Pleading shone in his eyes. Pleading and fear and—and love.
Love she did not deserve, had never once deserved, but there it was. Just as it had been there from the instant they’d met.
What was the value of the world, compared to him? To this?
“This is growing tiring,” Briallyn said.
Nesta let her mate see the love shining in her face.
The sky filled with soft, gentle light.
“Kill,” Briallyn ordered Cassian.
Nesta had loved Cassian since she’d first laid eyes on him. Had loved him even when she did not want to, even when she had been swallowed by despair and fear and hatred. Had loved him and destroyed herself because she didn’t believe she deserved him, because he was all that was good, and brave, and kind, and she loved him, she loved him, she loved him—
Cassian’s arm shook, and Nesta braced herself for the blow, showing him her forgiveness, her unending, unbreakable love for him—
But Cassian roared.
And then the knife twisted in his hand, angling not toward her, but toward his own heart.
Of his own free will.
Against the Crown’s hold, against a gasping Briallyn, he chose to drive the knife into his own heart. Kill, she had said. But had not specified who.
And as the sun broke over the horizon, as Cassian’s knife plunged for his chest, Nesta erupted with the force of the Cauldron.
There was nothing in Nesta’s head but screaming. Nothing in her heart but love and hatred and fury as she let go of everything inside her and the entire world exploded.
The baying of her magic was a beast with no name. Avalanches cascaded down the cliffs in seas of glittering white. Trees bent and ruptured in the wake of the power that shattered from her. Distant seas drew back from their shores, then raced in waves toward them again. Glasses shook and shattered in Velaris, books tumbled off the shelves in Helion’s thousand libraries, and the remnants of a run-down cottage in the human lands crumbled into a pile of rubble.
But all Nesta saw was Briallyn. All she saw was the slack-jawed crone as Nesta leaped upon her, throwing her frail body to the rocky ground. All she knew was screaming as she clutched Briallyn’s face, the Crown glowing blindingly white, and roared her fury to the mountains, to the stars, to the dark places between them.
Gnarled hands turned young. A lined face became beautiful and lovely. White hair darkened to raven black.
But Nesta bellowed and bellowed, letting her magic rage, unleashing every ember. Erasing the queen beneath her from existence.
The young hands turned to ash. The pretty face dissolved into nothing. The dark hair withered into dust.
Until all that was left of the queen was the Crown on the ground.
CHAPTER
75
Cassian lay facedown on the earth.
Nesta rushed toward him, praying, sobbing, her magic still echoing through the world.
She turned him over, searching for the knife, the wound, but—
The knife lay beneath him. Unbloodied.
He groaned, cracking his eyes open. “I figured,” he rasped, “I should lie low while you did that.”
Nesta gaped at him. Then burst into tears.
Cassian sat up, soothing sounds on his tongue, and took her face in his hands. “You Unmade her.”
Nesta glanced to the Crown on the earth—the black stain where Briallyn had been. “She had it coming.”
He chuckled, leaning his brow against hers. Nesta closed her eyes, breathing in his scent. “You are my mate, Cassian,” she said against his lips, and kissed him softly.
“And you’re mine,” he said, kissing her in turn.
And then his hands slid into her hair. And the kiss …
It did not matter, the world around them, or the Crown at her feet, as he kissed her. A mate’s kiss. One that set their souls twining, glowing.
She pulled back, letting him see the joy in her eyes, her smile. His awe, his own joy, made her throat tighten.
“Cassian, I—”
But two figures landed beside them, making the mountain shudder, and they whirled to find Mor and Azriel there, faces grave.
“Eris?” Cassian demanded.
“Safe, and the Made dagger is in our possession again,” Azriel said, “though Eris is pissed and confused. He’s at the Hewn City. But—”
“It’s Feyre,” Mor said.
CHAPTER
76
The river house was so silent. Like a tomb.
“She started bleeding a few hours ago,” Mor said as she led them through the house.
“But she’s months away from giving birth,” Nesta protested, following close on her heels.
The scent of blood filled the room they entered. So much blood, all over the bed, smeared over Feyre’s spread thighs. No babe—and Feyre’s face … It was white as death. Her eyes were closed, her breathing too shallow.
Rhys crouched at her side, gripping her hand. Panic and terror and pain warred on his face.
Madja, kneeling on the bed between Feyre’s legs, blood up to her elbows, said without looking at them, “I turned the babe, but he’s not descending. He’s wedged in the birth canal.”
A small intake of breath from the corner of the room revealed Amren sitting there, her pale face drained of color.
“She’s losing too much blood, and I can feel the babe’s heart in distress,” Madja announced.
“What do we do?” Mor asked as Cassian and Azriel went to stand behind Rhys, hands on his shoulders.
“There is nothing we can do,” Madja said. “Cutting the babe out of her will kill her.”
“Cutting it out?” Nesta demanded, earning a sharp glare from Rhys.
Madja ignored her tone. “An incision along her abdomen, even one carefully made, is an enormous risk. It’s never been successful. And even with Feyre’s healing abilities, the blood loss has weakened her—”
“Do it,” Feyre managed to say, the words weighted with pain.
“Feyre,” Rhys objected.
“The babe likely won’t survive,” Madja said, voice gentle but no-nonsense. “It’s too small yet. We risk both of you.”
“All of you,” Cassian breathed, eyes on Rhys.
“Do it,” Feyre said, and her voice was that of the High Lady. No fear. Only determination for the life of the babe within her. Feyre looked up at Rhys. “We have to.”
The High Lord nodded slowly, eyes lined with silver.
A hand slid into Nesta’s, and she found Elain there, shaking and wide-eyed. Nesta squeezed her sister’s fingers. Together, they approached the other side of the bed.
And when Elain began praying to the Fae’s foreign gods, to their Mother, Nesta bowed her head, too.
Feyre was dying. The babe was dying.
And Rhys would die with them.
But Cassian knew it wasn’t fear of his own death that had his brother trembling. Cassian’s hand tightened on Rhys’s shoulder. Night-flecked power leaked from his High Lord, trying to heal Feyre, just as Madja’s was, but the blood kept pouring out, faster than any power could stifle.
How had it come to this? A bargain made through love between two mates would now end in three lives lost.
Cassian’s body drifted somewhere far away as Madja got off the bed, then returned with a set of knives and tools, blankets and towels.
“Go into her mind to take the pain away,” Madja said to Rhys, who blinked in confirmation, then cursed, as if scolding himself for not thinking of it sooner. Cassian looked across the bed, to where Elain was holding Feyre’s other hand, and Nesta held Elain’s.
Rhys said to his mate, “Feyre darling—”
“No good-byes,” Feyre panted. “No good-byes, Rhys.”
Whatever Rhys did for the pain had her eyes closing. And Cassian’s mind went wholly silent and blank as Madja pulled up Feyre’s shift, her knives flashing.
There was no sound when the tiny, winged babe emerged. When Mor stood there, blankets in hand, and took the unmoving boy from Madja’s bloody hands.
But Rhys was crying, and tears began pouring down Mor’s face as she gazed at the silent babe in her arms.
And then Madja swore, and Rhys—
Rhys began screaming.
Cassian knew, as Rhys lunged for Feyre on the bed, what was about to happen.
Yet no force in the world could stop it.
The world slowed. Went cold.
There was the silent, too-small babe in Mor’s arms.
There was Feyre, sliced open and bleeding out on the bed.
There was Rhysand screaming, as if his soul were being shredded, but Cassian and Azriel were there, hauling him away from the bed as Madja tried to save Feyre—
But Death hovered nearby. Nesta felt it, saw it, a shadow thicker and more permanent than any of Azriel’s. Elain sobbed, squeezing Feyre’s hand, pleading with her to hold on, and Nesta stood in the midst of it, Death swirling around her, and there was nothing, nothing, nothing to be done as Feyre’s breathing thinned, as Madja began shouting at her to fight it—
Feyre.
Feyre, who had gone into the woods for them. Who had saved them so many times.
Feyre. Her sister.
Death lurked near Feyre and her mate, a beast waiting to pounce, to devour them both. Nesta pulled her hand free of Elain’s. Stepped back.
She closed her eyes, and opened that place in her soul that had torn free on Ramiel.
Cassian could barely restrain Rhys, even with all seven Siphons blaring along with Azriel’s.
He should let Rhys go to her. If they were both about to die, he should let Rhys go to his mate. Be with her in these last seconds, last breaths—
Golden light flickered on the other side of the room, and Amren gasped. Cassian’s heart curdled in horror.
Nesta no longer hovered by the side of the bed. She now stood a few feet away.
She wore the Mask. She’d placed the Crown atop her head. And she cradled the Harp in her arms.
No one had ever wielded all three and lived. No one could contain their power, control them—
Nesta’s eyes blazed with silver fire behind the Mask. And Cassian knew the being that looked out was neither Fae nor human nor anything that walked the lands of this world.
She began moving toward the bed, and Rhys surged for her.
Nesta held up a hand, and Rhys went still. As still as Cassian had gone under the Crown’s control.
Feyre’s chest lifted, a death-rattle whispering from her white lips, and Cassian could do nothing but watch as Nesta’s fingers, still bloody and filthy from the Rite, drifted to the final string of the Harp. The twenty-sixth string.
And plucked it.
CHAPTER
77
It was Time.
The twenty-sixth string on the Harp was Time itself, and Nesta stopped it as Feyre took her last breath.
Lanthys had said as much. That even Death bowed to the final string. That time was of no consequence to the Harp.
The string made no sound as Nesta plucked it. Only robbed the world of it.
And the death that Nesta felt around her sister, around Rhysand, around the babe in Mor’s arms—she bade the Mask to halt that, too. Hold it at bay.
In the beginning
And in the end
There was Darkness
And nothing more
A soft, familiar voice whispered the words. As they had been whispered to her long ago. As it had warned her in Oorid’s darkness. A lovely, kind female voice, sage and warm, which had been waiting for her all this time.
The room was a tableau of frozen movement, of shocked and horrified faces twisted toward her, toward Feyre and all that blood. Nesta walked through it. Past Rhys’s screaming, straining body, his face the portrait of despair and terror and pain; past grave-faced Azriel; past Cassian, gritting his teeth as he held Rhys back. Past Amren, whose gray eyes were fixed on where Nesta had been, pure dread and something like awe in her face.
Past Mor and that too-small bundle in her arms, Elain at her side, frozen in her crying.
Nesta walked through it all, through Time. To her sister.
Do you see how it might be? that soft female voice whispered, staring out through her eyes. What you might do?
I feel nothing, Nesta said silently. Only the sight of Feyre on Death’s threshold kept her from forgetting why she was here, what she needed to do.
Is that not what you wanted? To feel nothing?
I thought that was what I wanted. Nesta surveyed the people around her. Her sisters. Cassian, who had been willing to plunge a dagger into his heart rather than harm her. But no longer. When the female voice didn’t press her, Nesta went on, I want to feel everything. I want to embrace it with my whole heart.
Even the things that hurt and hunt you? Only curiosity laced the question.
Nesta allowed herself a breath to ponder it, stilling her mind once more. We need those things in order to appreciate the good. Some days might be more difficult than others, but … I want to experience all of it, live through all of it. With them.
That wise, soft voice whispered, So live, Nesta Archeron.
Nesta needed nothing more as she took her sister’s limp hand and knelt upon the floor. Set down the Harp beside her, its silent note still reverberating, holding Time firm in its grasp.
She didn’t know what she could offer, beyond this.
Stroking Feyre’s cold hand, Nesta spoke into the timeless, frozen room, “You loved me when no one else would. You never stopped. Even when I didn’t deserve it, you loved me, and fought for me, and …” Nesta looked at Feyre’s face, Death a breath away from claiming it. She didn’t stop the tears that ran down her cheeks as she squeezed Feyre’s slender hand tighter. “I love you, Feyre.”
She had never said the words aloud. To anyone.
“I love you,” Nesta whispered again. “I love you.”
And when the Harp’s final string wavered, like a whisper of thunder on the air, Nesta covered Feyre’s body with her own. Time would resume soon. She did not have much longer.
She reached inward, toward the power that had made deathless monsters tremble and wicked kings fall to their knees, but … she didn’t know how to use it. Death flowed through her veins, yet she did not have the knowledge to master it.
One wrong move, one mistake, and Feyre would be lost.
So Nesta held her sister tightly, with Time halted around them, and she whispered, “If you show me how to save her, you can have it back.”
The world paused. Worlds beyond their own paused.
Nesta buried her face in the cold sweat of Feyre’s neck. She opened that place within herself, and said to the Mother, to the Cauldron, “I’ll give back what I took from you. Just show me how to save them—her and Rhysand and the baby.” Rhysand—her brother. That’s what he was, wasn’t he? Her brother, who had offered her kindness even when she knew he wanted to throttle her. And she him. And the baby … her nephew. Blood of her blood. She would save him, save them, even if it took everything. “Show me,” she pleaded.
No one answered. The Harp stopped its echoing.
As Time resumed, noise and movement roaring into the room, Nesta whispered to the Cauldron, her promise rising above the din, “I’ll give it all back.”
And a soft, invisible hand brushed her cheek in answer.
Cassian blinked, and Nesta had gone from one side of the room to the bed. Had plucked the Harp, and now lay half-atop Feyre, whispering. No silver fire burned in her eyes. Not a cold ember. No sign of the being who’d peered out through her stare, either.
Rhys lunged against his hold, but Amren stepped to their side and hissed, “Listen.”
Nesta whispered, “I give it all back.” Her shoulders heaved as she wept.
Rhys began shaking his head, his power a palpable, rising wave that could destroy them all, destroy the world if it meant Feyre was no longer in it, even if he only had seconds to live beyond her, but Amren grabbed the nape of his neck. Her red nails dug into his golden skin. “Look at the light.”
Iridescent light began flowing from Nesta’s body. Into Feyre.
Nesta kept holding her sister. “I give it back. I give it back. I give it back.”
Even Rhys stopped fighting. No one moved.
The light glimmered down Feyre’s arms. Her legs. It suffused her ashen face. Began to fill the room.
Cassian’s Siphons guttered, as if sensing a power far beyond his own, beyond any of theirs.
Tendrils of light drifted between the sisters. And one, delicate and loving, floated toward Mor. To the bundle in her arms, setting the silent babe within glowing bright as the sun.
And Nesta kept whispering, “I give it back. I give it all back.”
The iridescence filled her, filled Feyre, filled the bundle in Mor’s arms, lighting his friend’s face so the shock on it was etched in stark relief.
“I give it back,” Nesta said, one more time, and Mask and Crown tumbled from her head. The light exploded, blinding and warm, a wind sweeping past them, as if gathering every shard of itself out of the room.
And as it faded, dark ink splashed upon Nesta’s back, visible through her half-shredded shirt, as if it were a wave crashing upon the shore.
A bargain. With the Cauldron itself.
Yet Cassian could have sworn a luminescent, gentle hand prevented the light from leaving her body altogether.
Cassian didn’t fight Rhys this time as he raced to the bed. To where Feyre lay, flush with color. No more blood spilling between her legs. Feyre opened her eyes.
She blinked at Rhys, and then turned to Nesta.
“I love you, too,” Feyre whispered to her sister, and smiled. Nesta didn’t stop her sob as she launched herself onto Feyre and embraced her.
But the gesture was short-lived, hardly the length of a blink before a healthy wail went up from the other side of the room, and—
Mor stammered, weeping, and the babe she brought to the bed was not the small, still thing she’d been holding, but a full-term winged boy. His thick cap of dark hair lay plastered to his head as he mewled for his mother.
Feyre began sobbing then, too, taking her son from Mor, hardly noticing Madja suddenly leaning between her legs, inspecting what was there—the healing. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d developed an Illyrian’s anatomy,” the healer muttered, but no one was listening.
Not as Rhys put his arm around Feyre and together they peered at the boy—their son. Together, they wept, and laughed, and when Madja said, “Let him feed,” Feyre obeyed, wonder in her eyes as she brought him to her breast, now swollen with milk.
But Rhys watched in awe for all of a moment before he whirled to Nesta, who had slid off the bed and now stood beside the Mask. Behind her, the Crown and the Harp lay strewn on the floor. Cassian held his breath as the two of them surveyed each other.
Then Rhys fell to his knees and took Nesta’s hands in his, pressing his mouth to her fingers. “Thank you,” he wept, head bowed. Cassian knew it wasn’t in gratitude for Rhys’s own life that he knelt upon the sacred tattoos inked upon his knees.
Nesta dropped to the carpet. Lifted Rhys’s face in her hands, studied what lay in it. Then she threw her arms around the High Lord of the Night Court and held him tightly.
HAPTER
78
Gwyn and Emerie were waiting in one of the parlors overlooking the river, healed but still in their torn, bloody clothes. Steam curled off the cups set on the low table before them.
Emerie said thickly as Nesta stopped before their couch, “Two wraiths brought us some tea—”
But Gwyn cut her off, face blazing as she hissed at Nesta, “I should never forgive you.”
Nesta just leaped onto the couch, hugging Gwyn tightly. She reached out an arm for Emerie, who joined their embrace. “We can talk forgiveness another day,” Nesta said through her tears, settling between them. “You won the entire damn thing.”
“Thanks to you,” Emerie said.
“I got a crown of my own, don’t worry,” Nesta said, even as she knew Mor was now winnowing all three objects of the Trove back to the place Nesta had taken them from. She’d summoned them, working around Helion’s spells. No spell could ever keep them from her—Briallyn had spoken true about that.
“Who healed you?” Nesta pulled back to survey them. “How are you even here?”
“The stone,” Emerie explained, features soft with wonder. “It healed every wound on us the moment it brought us out of the Rite. We arrived here, of all places.”
“I think it knew where we were needed most,” Gwyn said quietly, and Nesta smiled.
Her smile faded, however, as she asked Emerie, “Will your family punish you for what happened to Bellius?” If they so much as thought about doing so, Nesta would pay them a little visit. With the Mask, the Harp, and the Crown.
Which was why the Trove should be kept far away from her.
Emerie shrugged a shoulder. “Deaths happen in the Rite. He fell in combat when one of his fellow warriors turned on him during the hike up Ramiel’s slopes. That’s as much as they need to know.” Her eyes twinkled.
Nesta had a feeling that the truth of what had occurred on that mountain would remain only with them—and the innermost circle of Feyre’s court. Cassian had clearly been brought into the Rite against his will. Hopefully no one would ever challenge that fact.
Gwyn laughed hoarsely. “The Illyrians are going to be furious about our winning, you know. Especially because I have no intention of being called Carynthian. I’m content with being a Valkyrie.”
“Oh, they’ll be in hysterics for decades,” Emerie agreed, grinning.
Nesta grinned back, slinging her arms around her friends again and sinking into the deep cushions of the couch. “I can’t wait to see it.”
And for the first time, with these two friends beside her, with her mate waiting for her … it was true.
Nesta couldn’t wait to see the future that unfolded. All of it.
The baby, whom Rhys and Feyre named Nyx, was as beautiful as anyone could ever dream a baby to be. Dark hair, with blue eyes that already glowed with his father’s and mother’s starlight, offsetting the light tan of his skin.
And then there were the tiny wings, which Cassian had never realized were so delicate, so perfect, until he touched their velvet softness. The claws atop them would grow in much later, along with the ability to use the wings themselves, but … He stared at the bundle in his arms, his heart full to bursting, and said to where Feyre and Rhys sat on the bed, neatly remade with clean linens, “You have no idea how much trouble this one is going to get into.”
Feyre chuckled. “Those pretty eyes will be to blame, I’m sure.”
Rhys, still rattled and pale, just smiled.
The door opened, and then Nesta was there, still in her torn, bloody, stolen clothes. She’d held the babe already, and Cassian’s chest had swelled, aching, to see her smiling down at Nyx.
But now Nesta’s eyes drifted to Cassian, and he saw the quiet request in them.
He silently handed Nyx to Azriel, who winced at the transfer of this most delicate little creature to his scarred hands, and followed Nesta out the door, into the hall, and down the stairs. They didn’t speak until they stood on the back lawn of the house, overlooking the river once again awakening in the spring sunshine.
What she’d done, both during the Rite and after it … She’d filled them all in briefly. He knew there was more. But perhaps some things would always remain a secret between her and her friends. Her sisters-in-arms.
So Cassian asked, “Is your magic … The power’s really gone?”
The brisk spring wind whipped her golden-brown hair across her face. “I gave it back to the Cauldron in exchange for the knowledge of how to save them.” She swallowed. “But a little remains. I think something else—someone else—stopped the Cauldron from taking all of it. And I made some changes of my own.”
The Mother. The only being who would see the sacrifice Nesta had made and give a little back. Perhaps it was she who had peered out at them through the Mask. “What did you change?”
Nesta rested a hand on her abdomen. “I changed myself a little, too. So none of us will have to go through this again.”
For a heartbeat, Cassian had no words. “You … You’re ready for a baby?”
Nesta barked a laugh. “No. Gods no. I’ll be drinking my contraceptive tea for a while yet.” She laughed again. “But I adjusted myself to match what the Cauldron did for Feyre. For when the time is right.”
He couldn’t tear himself from the quiet joy lighting her face. So he offered her a soft smile. Yes—when the time was right, they would start that journey together.
But what Nesta had done today, what she’d given …
“You could have ruled the world with your power,” he said carefully.
“I don’t want to rule the world.” Her eyes were unguarded in a way he had never seen. Mate, she had called him.
“What do you want?” Cassian managed to ask, voice rasping.
She smiled, and damn if it wasn’t the loveliest thing he’d ever seen. “You.”
“You’ve had me from the moment you met me.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind an arched ear. “I know.”
He brushed a kiss over her mouth. But Nesta said, “I want a disgustingly ornate mating ceremony.”
He laughed, pulling away. “Really?”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll never hear the end of it from Azriel and Mor.” Or the Illyrians.
Nesta considered. Then pulled something out of her pocket. A small biscuit, swiped from a tray in the birthing room. “Then here. Food. From me to you, my mate. That’s the official ritual, isn’t it? The sharing of food from one mate to the other?”
He choked. “These are my two options? A frilly mating ceremony or a stale biscuit?”
Her face filled with such true light, it nearly stole the breath from him. “Yes.”
So Cassian laughed again, and folded her fingers around the pathetic biscuit, leaning to whisper in her ear, “We’ll make a coronation of it, Nes.”
“I already have a crown,” she said. “I just want you.”
His jaw tightened. Yes, they’d have to figure out what to do with the entire Dread Trove now that they possessed all three objects. How Nesta had summoned it despite the spells Helion had placed on the other two … He’d think of that another day. Along with the fact that she’d stopped Time with the Harp. And that she seemed to have some sort of connection—or understanding—with the Mother. The Mother.
But Nesta smoothed his bunched brow, as if she could see those worries there. “Later,” she promised. “We’ll deal with all that later.” Including the remaining queens, Koschei, and a still-looming war.
“Later,” he agreed, and she slid her arms around his neck.
There were no more words after that. Only the two of them, standing on the riverbank under the sun, letting its warmth seep through their bones.
Nesta pulled away, whispering, “I love you,” and it was all Cassian needed before kissing her again, the force of it more powerful and enduring than the Cauldron itself.
CHAPTER
79
Meeting Eris was the last thing Cassian wanted to do, but someone had to check in with the male. Two days after Nyx’s birth, Cassian set off to do just that. Eris had been seen to a suite in the Hewn City, and from Keir’s stormy expression upon Cassian’s arrival, he had a feeling that Eris had told the steward very little.
Eris was reading a book by the roaring fire, an ankle crossed over a knee, as if his presence here were nothing unusual. As if he hadn’t been kidnapped, enchanted, and manipulated by a vengeful queen and a death-lord.
Eris lifted his amber eyes as Cassian shut the door. “I can’t stay long.”
“Good.”
Eris closed the book, watching Cassian drop into the seat opposite him. “I suppose you want to know what I told Briallyn.”
“Rhys already looked into your mind. Turns out, you didn’t know much.” He gave the male a slashing grin.
Eris rolled his eyes. “So why am I here?”
Cassian surveyed the male. Eris’s clothes remained immaculate, but a muscle ticked on his jaw. “We wanted to know what you told Beron. Since you’re sitting here, in one piece, I’m assuming he doesn’t know about our involvement in your rescue.”
“Oh, he knows that you … assisted me.”
Cassian straightened, wings shifting.
Eris went on, “Always mix truth and lies, General. Didn’t those warrior-brutes teach you about how to withstand an enemy’s torture?”
Cassian knew. He’d been tortured and interrogated and never once broken. “Beron tortured you?”
Eris rose, tucking his book under an arm. “Who cares what my father does to me? He believed my story about the shadowsinger’s spies informing him that a valuable asset had been kidnapped by Briallyn, and that you lot were disgusted to arrive and find it was me, rather than someone from the Summer or Winter Courts or whoever stoops to associate with you.”
Cassian unpacked each word. Beron had tortured his own son for information, rather than thanking the Mother for returning him. But Eris had held out. Fed Beron another lie.
And then there was the way Eris had spoken about the other courts. Something had been off in his words, his tight expression. Was the male jealous?
Cassian opened his mouth, more than ready to launch that question at him and bestow a stinging blow.
Yet he hesitated. Looked into Eris’s eyes.
The male had been raised with every luxury and privilege—on paper. But who knew what terrors Beron had inflicted upon him? Cassian knew Beron had murdered Lucien’s lover. If the High Lord of Autumn had been willing to do that, what wouldn’t he do?
“Get that pitying look off your face,” Eris snarled softly. “I know what sort of creature my father is. I don’t need your sympathy.”
Cassian again studied him. “Why did you leave Mor in the woods that day?” It was the question that would always remain. “Was it just to impress your father?”
Eris barked a laugh, harsh and empty. “Why does it still matter to all of you so much?”
“Because she’s my sister, and I love her.”
“I didn’t realize Illyrians were in the habit of fucking their sisters.”