He dismissed all the captains and generals, Keir and Devlon looking none too pleased at the order as they stormed out, dismissed everyone but his sister, Tarquin, and my own family.
“We march north—and we stay.”
Rhys lifted a brow. Cassian frowned.
But Varian jabbed a finger on the map spread on the table we’d gathered around. “Spin a glamour—a good one. So that if anyone walks by here, they see and hear and smell an army. Put whatever spells in place to repel them from actually coming up to it. But let Hybern’s eyes report that we are still here. That we choose to stay here.”
“While we march north under a sight shield,” Cassian murmured, rubbing his jaw. “It could work.” He added with a grin to Varian, “You ever get sick of all that sunshine, you can come play with us in Velaris.”
Though Varian frowned, something glinted in his eye.
But Tarquin said to Rhys, “You could make such a deception?”
Rhys nodded and winked at me. “With assistance from my mate.”
I prayed that I’d rested enough as they all looked to me.
I was nearly drained by the time Rhys and I were finished that night. I followed his instructions, marking faces and details, willing that shape-shifting magic to craft them out of thin air, to give them life of their own.
It was like … applying a thin film over all those living in the camp, that would then separate when we moved out—separate and grow into its own entity that walked and talked and did all manner of things here. While we marched to intercept Hybern’s army, hidden from sight by Rhys.
But it worked. Cresseida, skilled with glamours herself, worked personally on the Summer Court soldiers. She and I were both panting and sweaty hours later, and I nodded my thanks as she handed me a skein of water. She was not a trained warrior like her brother, but she was a solid, needed presence amongst the army—the soldiers looked to her for guidance and stability.
We moved out again, a far larger beast than the one that had flown down here. The Summer Court soldiers and Keir’s legion could not fly, but Tarquin dug deep into his reservoirs and winnowed them along with us. He’d be wholly empty by the time we reached the enemy, but he insisted he was better at fighting with steel anyway.
We found the Hybern army at the northern edge of the mighty forest that stretched along the Summer Court’s eastern border.
Azriel had scouted the land ahead for Cassian, laid it out in precise detail. It was late enough in the afternoon that Hybern was readying to settle down for the night.
Cassian had let our army rest all day, anticipating that. Knowing that at the end of a long day of marching, Hybern’s forces would be exhausted, muddled. Another rule of war, he told me. Knowing when to pick your battles could be equally as important as where you fought them.
With rain-heavy clouds sweeping in from the east and the sun sinking toward the trees behind us—sycamores and oaks that towered high—we landed. Rhys ripped off the glamour surrounding us.
He wanted word to get out—wanted word to spread amongst Hybern’s forces who was meeting them at every turn. Slaughtering them.
But they already knew.
Again, I watched from the camp itself, atop a broad rim leading into the grassy little valley where Hybern had planned to rest. Elain ducked into her tent the moment the Illyrian warriors built it for her. Only Nesta strode toward the edge of the tents to watch the battle on the valley floor below. Mor joined her, then me.
Nesta did not flinch at the clash and din of battle. She only stared toward one black-armored figure, leading the lines, his occasional order to push or to hold that flank barking across the battle.
Now. I had to go now—quickly. I took a step away from the outlook.
My sister narrowed her brows at me. “You’re leaving?”
“I’ll be back soon,” was all I said. I didn’t dare wonder how much of our army would be left when I did.
By the time I strode away, Nesta had already faced the battle once more, rain plastering her hair to her head. Resuming her unending vigil of the general battling on the valley floor below.
I had to track the Suriel.
And even though Elain could not see the Hybern host … It was worth a try.
Her tent was dim, and quiet—the sounds of slaughter far away, dreamlike.
She was awake, staring blankly at the canvas ceiling.
“I need you to find something for me,” I said, dripping water everywhere as I laid a map across her thighs. Perhaps not as gentle as I should have been, but she at least sat up at my tone. Blinked at the map of Prythian.
“It’s called the Suriel—it’s one of many who bear that name. But … but it looks like this,” I said, and reached for her hand to show her. I hesitated. “May I show it to you?”
My sister’s brown eyes were glazed.
“Plant the image in your mind,” I clarified. “So you know where to look.”
“I don’t know how to look,” Elain mumbled.
“You can try.” I should have asked Amren to train her, too.
But Elain studied me, the map, then nodded.
She had no mental shields, no barriers. The gates to her mind … Solid iron, covered in vines of flowers—or it would have been. The blossoms were all sealed, sleeping buds tucked into tangles of leaves and thorns.
I took a step beyond them, just into the antechamber of her mind, and planted the image of the Suriel there, trying to infuse it with safety—the truth that it looked terrifying, but had not harmed me.
Still, Elain shuddered when I pulled out. “Why?”
“It has answers I need. Immediately.” Or else we might not have much of an army left to fight that entire Hybern host once I located it.
Elain again glanced at the map. At me. Then closed her eyes.
Her eyes shifted beneath her lids, the skin so delicate and colorless that the blue veins beneath were like small streams. “It moves …,” she whispered. “It moves through the world like … like the breath of the western wind.”
“Where is it headed?”
Her finger lifted, hovering over the map, the courts.
Slowly, she set it down.
“There,” she breathed. “It is going there. Now.”
I looked at where she had laid her finger and felt the blood rush from my face.
The Middle.
The Suriel was headed to that ancient forest in the Middle. Just south—miles, perhaps …
From the Weaver of the Wood.
I winnowed in five leaps. I was breathless, my power nearly drained thanks to the glamouring I’d done yesterday, the summoned flame I’d used to dry myself off, and the winnowing that had taken me from the battle and right into the heart of that ancient wood.
The heavy, ripe air was as awful as I remembered, the forest thick with moss that choked the gnarled beeches and the gray stones scattered throughout. Then there was the silence.
I wondered if I should have indeed brought Mor with me as I listened. As I felt with my lingering magic for any sign of it.
The moss cushioned my steps as I eased into a walk. Scanning, listening. How far away, how small, that battle to the south felt.
My swallow was loud in my ears.
Things other than the Weaver prowled these woods. And the Weaver herself … Stryga, the Bone Carver had called her. His sister. Both siblings to an awful, male creature lurking in another part of the world.
I drew my Illyrian blade, the metal singing in the thick air.
But an ancient, rasping voice asked behind me, “Have you come to kill me, or to beg for my help once again, Feyre Archeron?”