A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses)

by Sarah J. Maas

  Nesta stared toward the bog’s black surface. “And they live in there?”

  “They vanished hundreds of years before we were born,” Cassian said firmly. “They’re a myth whispered around fires, and a warning for children not to play near the water. But no one knows where they went. Most were hunted, but the survivors …” He conceded with a nod to Azriel, “It’s possible that they fled to the Middle. The one place that could protect them.” Nesta grimaced. Cassian threw her a grin that didn’t meet his eyes. “Just don’t go running after a beautiful white horse or a pretty-faced young man and you’ll be fine.”

  “And stay out of the water,” Azriel added solemnly.

  “What if the Mask is in the water?” She gestured to the vast bog. They’d fly over it, they’d decided, and let her sense whatever lay here.

  “Then Az and I will draw straws like the tough warriors we are and the loser goes in.”

  Azriel rolled his eyes, but chuckled. Cassian’s grin at last glowed in his gaze as he opened his arms. “Oorid’s beauty awaits, my lady.”

  Cassian had been to some horrible places in his five centuries of existence.

  The Bog of Oorid was by far the worst. Its very essence spoke of death and decay.

  The oppressive air muffled even the sound of their wings, like Oorid would abide no sound disturbing its ancient slumber.

  Nesta clung to him as he flew, Az at his side, and Cassian peered at the dead forest that spread below, the black water that had flooded it like an obsidian mirror. It was so still that he could see their reflections perfectly.

  The wind whipping her braided hair, Nesta said, “I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

  “Just keep all your senses open and see if anything sparks.” Cassian began a wide circle to the west. The air seemed to press on his wings, as if it would cast them down to the earth.

  But to enter that black water would be a last resort.

  Islands of grass dotted the expanse, some so crowded with brambles that he could find no safe place to land. The tangles of thorns were a mockery of what might have been—as if Oorid had ever produced roses. Not a single flower bloomed.

  “It’s unbearable.” Nesta shivered.

  “We’ll stay only as long as we can stomach it,” Cassian said, “and if we don’t find anything, we’ll return tomorrow and pick up where we left off.”

  He had two swords, four knives, an Illyrian bow, and a quiver of arrows, plus all seven Siphons. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of flying naked.

  “What else dwells here other than kelpies?”

  “Some say witches,” he murmured. “Not the human kind,” he added when she raised a brow. “The kind that used to be something else and then their thirst for magic and power turned them into wretched creatures, banished here by various High Lords.”

  “They don’t sound so bad.”

  “They drink young blood to fill the coldness the magic left in them.”

  Nesta winced. Cassian went on as she scanned the bog, “There are lightsingers: lovely, ethereal beings who will lure you, appearing as friendly faces when you are lost. Only when you’re in their arms will you see their true faces, and they aren’t fair at all. The horror of it is the last thing you see before they drown you in the bog. But they kill for sport, not food.”

  “And all these horrible creatures are just left here, untended?”

  “The Middle lies under no High Lord’s jurisdiction. It’s long been the dumping ground for any unwanteds.”

  “Not the Prison?”

  “Their crimes are ones of nature. A kelpie is designed to lure and kill, just as a wolf is designed to hunt its prey. The Middle keeps them separate from us without punishing them for what they were made to be.”

  “But no one will come rid the world of them?”

  “The Middle is full of primal magic. It has its own rules and laws. Hunt the kelpies or lightsingers without provocation and you might find yourself trapped here.”

  She shuddered. “How would the Mask have wound up in the bog?”

  “I don’t know.” He nodded toward the ground. “You feel anything?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  Cassian glanced over a shoulder to Az before they entered a cloud of mist hovering above the northern section of the bog. It was so thick that Cassian rose higher, not wanting to impale them on a tall tree. The mist was chill enough to run icy fingers down his wings, his face.

  Nesta jolted, then breathed, “Cassian.”

  He cleared the mist, banking to the left. “You sensed something?”

  “I don’t know what I sensed.” She swallowed. “Something is here.”

  He looked over his shoulder again to signal Azriel.

  But Az wasn’t there.

  CHAPTER

  33

  “Azriel!”

  Cassian’s shout didn’t even echo.

  Clinging to his neck, Nesta scanned the mist. Cassian hung back from it, wings beating in place as he searched for his brother. “Hold on,” he hissed before he launched into a drop, using the momentum to swoop into the mist.

  Blue light flared below—ahead. Azriel’s Siphons.

  “Fuck,” Cassian spat, and shot lower.

  Trees thrust upward, sharp as swords, and he swerved around them, wings within an inch of shredding on those spikes. Nesta’s heart thundered, but she wouldn’t shut her eyes against the death all around, not as Cassian dropped beneath the mist’s curtain and they beheld what Azriel faced.

  Cassian turned so swiftly Nesta barely had time to brace herself, and then he was flying back the way he’d come, through the mist. “Where are you going?” she demanded. “There are two dozen soldiers there!”

  “Autumn Court soldiers,” Cassian clarified, wings pumping so hard the wind ripped at her eyes. “I don’t know what the fuck they’re doing here, or if Eris has royally fucked us over, but one of them shot an ash arrow through Az’s wing.”

  “Then why are we flying away?”

  “Because I’m not landing with you in the middle of that.”

  “Put me down!” she shouted. “Put me down wherever and go back to him!” He didn’t, surveying the bog below for the right place. She slammed a hand on his muscled chest. “Cassian!”

  “I know what each second costs me, Nesta,” he said quietly.

  “Put me down in a fucking tree, then!” She pointed to one that they narrowly avoided.

  He spotted an area he deemed safe enough: a solid stretch of grassy land, the remnants of a tree rising from its midst. He set her in the tree, as she’d suggested, perching her on the highest, sturdiest branch. It groaned and swayed beneath their weight. “Stay here,” he commanded, waiting until she’d wrapped her hands around the branch and was clinging like a child who’d climbed too high. “I’ll be back soon. Do not climb down. No matter what you may see or hear.”

  “Go.” She was utterly useless in a fight, she knew. She would only distract him.

  “Be careful,” he warned, as if he weren’t the one about to head into danger, and then he was gone. Nesta clung to the tree branch so hard her entire body trembled, the silence of the bog wrapping around her like a leaden blanket.

  Oorid devoured Cassian’s swift wingbeats within seconds, so she couldn’t even hear him as he disappeared into the mist.

  Cassian aimed toward where his senses told him Az still fought. His eyesight sure as fuck didn’t help him—the mist seemed thicker now.

  The Autumn Court was here. Were these Eris’s missing soldiers, or had he played them all for fools? Had Beron somehow learned of their plans?

  He flew, swift as he could, praying Az had held them off, even with that ash bolt through his wing. The restraint of the ash bolt on Az’s power was the only reason the soldiers weren’t already dead—why Azriel’s Siphons had been a flicker and not an incinerating wall against soldiers who were far less skilled.

  Cassian descended into cool calm, willing each of his Siphons awake. He fed his power i
nto them, and they refracted it back, confirming that they were ready, he was ready, for the bloodletting to begin.

  Azriel’s blue Siphons flared ahead, a smear of cobalt in the mist, and Cassian shot higher into the sky, until that blue was a flutter beneath him.

  He stopped flapping entirely so the warriors wouldn’t hear any wingbeats.

  Then he spread his wings silently and slid into a free fall. Mist bit at him, the heavy air slapped his face, but he drew a blade and the knife at his thigh in silence.

  The mist broke five feet above the skirmish.

  The soldiers didn’t have time to look up before Cassian was upon them.

  Blood sprayed and males screamed, power bouncing off the red of Cassian’s Siphons. Az battled it out with six soldiers at once, left wing limp and bleeding, his own Siphons blazing. The ash bolt had rendered Az’s power nearly useless. But the Siphons had been blazing as a signal—for Cassian.

  The sight of Az’s injured wing made his head begin roaring.

  Cassian killed and killed and did not stop.

  Too long.

  Cassian and Azriel had been gone for too long.

  Nesta’s limbs were beginning to lock up from the effort of clinging like a bear cub to the tree. She knew she had scant minutes until her body rebelled and let go.

  There was no sound, no flash of light. Only the silent bog and the mist and the dead tree.

  Every breath echoed her thoughts. Every breath was gobbled up by Oorid’s oppression.

  She’d seen Cassian face Hybern soldiers. Two dozen from the Autumn Court should be nothing. But why were they here?

  Her legs shook so badly she nearly lost her grip on the branch. She knew she presented an utterly pathetic picture, laid out along the branch precisely as Cassian had left her, legs wrapped around it, ankles crossed over each other, fingers digging into the dry, silvery wood.

  Carefully, she pushed herself up, her arms tingling with the numbness of clenching tight for so long. Her legs buckled with relief, too, as she released their grip, letting them hang in the air. She scanned the general direction Cassian had gone. Nothing.

  He’d fallen in battle before—she’d seen him gravely injured. The first time in Hybern, when he’d tried to crawl toward her as she went into the Cauldron. The second time against Hybern’s forces, when he’d been gutted and Azriel had held his entrails in with his bare hands. And the third time against the King of Hybern himself, when she had asked him, ordered him, to use her as bait, the distraction while she drew the king away from Feyre and the Cauldron.

  After so many brushes with death, it was only a matter of time until it stuck.

  Her mouth dried out. Azriel had been struck with an ash arrow. What if the soldiers had injured Cassian similarly? What if they were both in need of help?

  She could do nothing against two dozen soldiers—against a single soldier, if she was being honest—but she couldn’t endure sitting in a tree like a coward. Not knowing if he lived. And she had magic. Had no idea how to use it, but … she had that, at least. Maybe it would help.

  She told herself she was concerned for Azriel, too. Told herself she cared about the shadowsinger’s fate as much as Cassian’s. But it was Cassian’s dead face that she couldn’t bear to imagine.

  Nesta didn’t let herself reconsider as she again laid herself out on the branch, wrapping her arms around it as she blindly lowered her leg, seeking the branch just beneath—

  There. Her foot found purchase, but she didn’t let it bear her full weight. Still clinging to the branch, fingernails digging into the dead wood hard enough that splinters sliced beneath them, she lowered herself onto the one below. Panting, she knelt again, and once more lowered her foot, finding another branch. But it was too far. Grunting, she brought her leg back up and carefully placed her hands on either side of her knees, focusing upon her balance, just as Cassian had taught her, thinking through every motion of her body, her feet, her breathing.

  Fingertips screaming at the splinters piercing the sensitive flesh beneath her nails, she dropped her legs until they hit the branch below. The branch under it was closer but thinner—wobblier. She had to lay herself flat on it to keep from teetering off.

  Branch by branch, Nesta descended until her boots sank into the mossy ground, and the tree loomed like a giant above her.

  The bog stretched all around, miles of black water and dead trees and grass.

  She’d have to wade through the water to reach him. Nesta focused on her breathing—or tried to. Each inhale remained shallow, sharp.

  Cassian could be hurt and dying. To sit idle wasn’t an option.

  She scanned the shoreline five feet ahead for any hint of shallower water to wade through to the nearest mossy island, covered in flesh-shredding thorns, but the water was so black it was impossible to determine if it was shallow or if it dropped to a bottomless pit.

  Nesta focused on her breathing again. She knew how to swim. Her mother had made sure of it, thanks to a cousin who had drowned in childhood. Murdered by faeries, her mother had claimed. I saw her dragged into the river.

  Had it been a kelpie? Or her mother’s own fears warped into something monstrous?

  Nesta made herself approach the edge of the black water.

  Run, a small voice whispered. Run and run, and do not look back.

  The voice was female, gentle. Wise and serene.

  Run.

  She couldn’t. If she were to run, it would be toward him, not away.

  Nesta stepped to the water’s edge, where grass disappeared into blackness.

  Her face stared back at her from the stillness. Pale and wide-eyed with terror.

  Run. Was that voice merely all that remained of her human instincts, or something more? She gazed at her reflection as if it would tell her.

  Something rustled in the thorns of the island, and she snapped up her head, heart thundering as she scanned for that familiar male face and wings. But there was no sign of Cassian. And whatever was in that bramble … She should find another island to head for.

  Nesta surveyed her reflection again.

  And found a pair of night-dark eyes looking back through it.

  CHAPTER

  34

  Nesta stumbled away so fast she landed on her backside, the mossy ground cushioning the impact. A face broke through the black water where her reflection had been.

  It was whiter than bone and humanoid. Male. Bit by bit, inch by inch, the head rose above the black water, obsidian hair drifting in the water around the creature, so silken it might as well have been the surface.

  His black eyes were enormous—no whites to be seen—his cheekbones so sharp they could have sliced the air. His nose was narrow and long, like a blade, and water dripped from its tip over a mouth … a mouth …

  It was too large, that mouth. Sensuous lips, but too wide.

  Then his arms slid from the water.

  In stiff, jolting movements they jerked onto the moss, white and thin, ending in fingers as long as her forearm. Fingers that dug into the grass, revealing four joints and dagger-sharp nails. They cracked and popped as he stretched and dug them into the grass, grappling for purchase.

  Nesta’s breath sawed out of her, terror a roaring in her mind as she crawled backward.

  He heaved himself out of the water, revealing a bony torso, his black hair dragging behind him like a net.

  She lurched back again as he slowly lifted his head.

  That too-wide mouth parted. Twin rows of rotted teeth, jagged as shards of glass, filled his mouth as he smiled.

  Her bladder loosened, her lap becoming wet and warm.

  He scented it, saw it, and that mouth widened further, fingers twitching as they hauled more and more of him from the water. His narrow, bare hips—

  He pushed himself onto his arms as he slid a long, white leg from the blackness. Another. And then he knelt on all fours, smiling at her.

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stare into that w
hite face, the black eyes as dark as the bog, the twitching, too-long fingers and that mouth, those eel’s teeth—

  He spoke then, and it was not a language she recognized. His voice rasped, deep and hoarse, full of terrible hunger and cruel amusement.

  The gentle female voice in her head pleaded, Run, run, run.

  His head cocked, sodden black hair sloshing with the movement, full of what seemed to be bog weeds. As if he’d heard that female voice, too. He spoke again, and it was like rock grating on rock—his tone more demanding.

  Kelpie. This was a kelpie, and he would kill her.

  Run, the voice shouted. Run!

  Nesta’s legs had become distant, numb. She couldn’t remember how to use them.

  The kelpie’s head twitched, fingers convulsing in the grass. His smile grew again. So wide she spied the long, black tongue writhing in his mouth, as if he could already taste her flesh.

  Nesta couldn’t recall how to scream as he lunged for her.

  Couldn’t do anything at all as those long fingers wrapped around her legs, claws ripping through her skin, and yanked her toward him.

  Pain ripped Nesta from her stupor, and she fought, fingers grabbing at the grass. It came free in clumps, as if it had no roots at all. As if the bog would do nothing to help her.

  The kelpie towed her along as he slithered back into the frigid water.

  And dragged her under the surface.

  The two soldiers were on their knees.

  Their light leather armor bore Eris’s insignia of two baying hounds on the breast. It didn’t confirm anything. They might have been ordered here by Eris, or Beron, or both of them. Until Azriel or Rhys could get answers out of them, Cassian wouldn’t waste time theorizing. Not that the soldiers offered any explanations.

  Their faces were vacant. Not a trace of fear in them, or in their scents.

  Azriel panted, wing bleeding freely from where he’d ripped away the ash arrow. Cassian, covered in blood that was not his own, assessed the two surviving soldiers, their fallen companions around them. Many in pieces.