I paused between the last two pillars, studying the High Lord lounging at the breakfast table and the view he surveyed.
“I’m not a dog to be summoned,” I said by way of greeting.
Slowly, Rhys looked over his shoulder. Those violet eyes were vibrant in the light, and I curled my fingers into fists as they swept from my head to my toes and back up again. He frowned at whatever he found lacking. “I didn’t want you to get lost,” he said blandly.
My head throbbed, and I eyed the silver teapot steaming in the center of the table. A cup of tea … “I thought it’d always be dark here,” I said, if only to not look quite as desperate for that life-giving tea so early in the morning.
“We’re one of the three Solar Courts,” he said, motioning for me to sit with a graceful twist of his wrist. “Our nights are far more beautiful, and our sunsets and dawns are exquisite, but we do adhere to the laws of nature.”
I slid into the upholstered chair across from him. His tunic was unbuttoned at the neck, revealing a hint of the tanned chest beneath. “And do the other courts choose not to?”
“The nature of the Seasonal Courts,” he said, “is linked to their High Lords, whose magic and will keeps them in eternal spring, or winter, or fall, or summer. It has always been like that—some sort of strange stagnation. But the Solar Courts—Day, Dawn, and Night—are of a more … symbolic nature. We might be powerful, but even we cannot alter the sun’s path or strength. Tea?”
The sunlight danced along the curve of the silver teapot. I kept my eager nod to a restrained dip of my chin. “But you will find,” Rhysand went on, pouring a cup for me, “that our nights are more spectacular—so spectacular that some in my territory even awaken at sunset and go to bed at dawn, just to live under the starlight.”
I splashed some milk in the tea, watching the light and dark eddy together. “Why is it so warm in here, when winter is in full blast out there?”
“Magic.”
“Obviously.” I set down my teaspoon and sipped, nearly sighing at the rush of heat and smoky, rich flavor. “But why?”
Rhys scanned the wind tearing through the peaks. “You heat a house in the winter—why shouldn’t I heat this place as well? I’ll admit I don’t know why my predecessors built a palace fit for the Summer Court in the middle of a mountain range that’s mildly warm at best, but who am I to question?”
I took a few more sips, that headache already lessening, and dared to scoop some fruit onto my plate from a glass bowl nearby.
He watched every movement. Then he said quietly, “You’ve lost weight.”
“You’re prone to digging through my head whenever you please,” I said, stabbing a piece of melon with my fork. “I don’t see why you’re surprised by it.”
His gaze didn’t lighten, though that smile again played about his sensuous mouth, no doubt his favorite mask. “Only occasionally will I do that. And I can’t help it if you send things down the bond.”
I contemplated refusing to ask as I had done last night, but … “How does it work—this bond that allows you to see into my head?”
He sipped from his own tea. “Think of the bargain’s bond as a bridge between us—and at either end is a door to our respective minds. A shield. My innate talents allow me to slip through the mental shields of anyone I wish, with or without that bridge—unless they’re very, very strong, or have trained extensively to keep those shields tight. As a human, the gates to your mind were flung open for me to stroll through. As Fae … ” A little shrug. “Sometimes, you unwittingly have a shield up—sometimes, when emotion seems to be running strong, that shield vanishes. And sometimes, when those shields are open, you might as well be standing at the gates to your mind, shouting your thoughts across the bridge to me. Sometimes I hear them; sometimes I don’t.”
I scowled, clenching my fork harder. “And how often do you just rifle through my mind when my shields are down?”
All amusement faded from his face. “When I can’t tell if your nightmares are real threats or imagined. When you’re about to be married and you silently beg anyone to help you. Only when you drop your mental shields and unknowingly blast those things down the bridge. And to answer your question before you ask, yes. Even with your shields up, I could get through them if I wished. You could train, though—learn how to shield against someone like me, even with the bond bridging our minds and my own abilities.”
I ignored the offer. Agreeing to do anything with him felt too permanent, too accepting of the bargain between us. “What do you want with me? You said you’d tell me here. So tell me.”
Rhys leaned back in his chair, folding powerful arms that even the fine clothes couldn’t hide. “For this week? I want you to learn how to read.”
CHAPTER
6
Rhysand had mocked me about it once—had asked me while we were Under the Mountain if forcing me to learn how to read would be my personal idea of torture.
“No, thank you,” I said, gripping my fork to keep from chucking it at his head.
“You’re going to be a High Lord’s wife,” Rhys said. “You’ll be expected to maintain your own correspondences, perhaps even give a speech or two. And the Cauldron knows what else he and Ianthe will deem appropriate for you. Make menus for dinner parties, write thank-you letters for all those wedding gifts, embroider sweet phrases on pillows … It’s a necessary skill. And, you know what? Why don’t we throw in shielding while we’re at it. Reading and shielding—fortunately, you can practice them together.”
“They are both necessary skills,” I said through my teeth, “but you are not going to teach me.”
“What else are you going to do with yourself? Paint? How’s that going these days, Feyre?”
“What the hell does it even matter to you?”
“It serves various purposes of mine, of course.”
“What. Purposes.”
“You’ll have to agree to work with me to find out, I’m afraid.”
Something sharp poked into my hand.
I’d folded the fork into a tangle of metal.
When I set it down on the table, Rhys chuckled. “Interesting.”
“You said that last night.”
“Am I not allowed to say it twice?”
“That’s not what I was implying and you know it.”
His gaze raked over me again, as if he could see beneath the peach fabric, through the skin, to the shredded soul beneath. Then it drifted to the mangled fork. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re rather strong for a High Fae?”
“Am I?”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He popped a piece of melon into his mouth. “Have you tested yourself against anyone?”
“Why would I?” I was enough of a wreck as it was.
“Because you were resurrected and reborn by the combined powers of the seven High Lords. If I were you, I’d be curious to see if anything else transferred to me during that process.”
My blood chilled. “Nothing else transferred to me.”
“It’d just be rather … interesting,” he smirked at the word, “if it did.”
“It didn’t, and I’m not going to learn to read or shield with you.”
“Why? From spite? I thought you and I got past that Under the Mountain.”
“Don’t get me started on what you did to me Under the Mountain.”
Rhys went still.
As still as I’d ever seen him, as still as the death now beckoning in those eyes. Then his chest began to move, faster and faster.
Across the pillars towering behind him, I could have sworn the shadow of great wings spread.
He opened his mouth, leaning forward, and then stopped. Instantly, the shadows, the ragged breathing, the intensity were gone, the lazy grin returning. “We have company. We’ll discuss this later.”
“No, we won’t.” But quick, light footsteps sounded down the hall, and then she appeared.
If Rhysand was the most beautiful male I’d ever seen, she
was his female equivalent.
Her bright, golden hair was tied back in a casual braid, and the turquoise of her clothes—fashioned like my own—offset her sun-kissed skin, making her practically glow in the morning light.
“Hello, hello,” she chirped, her full lips parting in a dazzling smile as her rich brown eyes fixed on me.
“Feyre,” Rhys said smoothly, “meet my cousin, Morrigan. Mor, meet the lovely, charming, and open-minded Feyre.”
I debated splashing my tea in his face, but Mor strode toward me. Each step was assured and steady, graceful, and … grounded. Merry but alert. Someone who didn’t need weapons—or at least bother to sheath them at her side. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, and I got to my feet, awkwardly jutting out my hand.
She ignored it and grabbed me into a bone-crushing hug. She smelled like citrus and cinnamon. I tried to relax my taut muscles as she pulled away and grinned rather fiendishly. “You look like you were getting under Rhys’s skin,” she said, strutting to her seat between us. “Good thing I came along. Though I’d enjoy seeing Rhys’s balls nailed to the wall.”
Rhys slid incredulous eyes at her, his brows lifting.
I hid the smile that tugged on my lips. “It’s—nice to meet you.”
“Liar,” Mor said, pouring herself some tea and loading her plate. “You want nothing to do with us, do you? And wicked Rhys is making you sit here.”
“You’re … perky today, Mor,” Rhys said.
Mor’s stunning eyes lifted to her cousin’s face. “Forgive me for being excited about having company for once.”
“You could be attending your own duties,” he said testily. I clamped my lips tighter together. I’d never seen Rhys … irked.
“I needed a break, and you told me to come here whenever I liked, so what better time than now, when you brought my new friend to finally meet me?”
I blinked, realizing two things at once: one, she actually meant what she said; two, hers was the female voice I’d heard speak last night, mocking Rhys for our squabble. So, that went well, she’d teased. As if there were any other alternative, any chance of pleasantness, where he and I were concerned.
A new fork had appeared beside my plate, and I picked it up, only to spear a piece of melon. “You two look nothing alike,” I said at last.
“Mor is my cousin in the loosest definition,” he said. She grinned at him, devouring slices of tomato and pale cheese. “But we were raised together. She’s my only surviving family.”
I didn’t have the nerve to ask what happened to everyone else. Or remind myself whose father was responsible for the lack of family at my own court.
“And as my only remaining relative,” Rhys went on, “Mor believes she is entitled to breeze in and out of my life as she sees fit.”
“So grumpy this morning,” Mor said, plopping two muffins onto her plate.
“I didn’t see you Under the Mountain,” I found myself saying, hating those last three words more than anything.
“Oh, I wasn’t there,” she said. “I was in—”
“Enough, Mor,” he said, his voice laced with quiet thunder.
It was a trial in itself not to sit up at the interruption, not to study them too closely.
Rhysand set his napkin on the table and rose. “Mor will be here for the rest of the week, but by all means, do not feel that you have to oblige her with your presence.” Mor stuck out her tongue at him. He rolled his eyes, the most human gesture I’d ever seen him make. He examined my plate. “Did you eat enough?” I nodded. “Good. Then let’s go.” He inclined his head toward the pillars and swaying curtains behind him. “Your first lesson awaits.”
Mor sliced one of the muffins in two in a steady sweep of her knife. The angle of her fingers, her wrist, indeed confirmed my suspicions that weapons weren’t at all foreign to her. “If he pisses you off, Feyre, feel free to shove him over the rail of the nearest balcony.”
Rhys gave her a smooth, filthy gesture as he strode down the hall.
I eased to my feet when he was a good distance ahead. “Enjoy your breakfast.”
“Whenever you want company,” she said as I edged around the table, “give a shout.” She probably meant that literally.
I merely nodded and trailed after the High Lord.
I agreed to sit at the long, wooden table in a curtained-off alcove only because he had a point. Not being able to read had almost cost me my life Under the Mountain. I’d be damned if I let it become a weakness again, his personal agenda or no. And as for shielding … I’d be a damned fool not to take up the offer to learn from him. The thought of anyone, especially Rhys, sifting through the mess in my mind, taking information about the Spring Court, about the people I loved … I’d never allow it. Not willingly.
But it didn’t make it any easier to endure Rhysand’s presence at the wooden table. Or the stack of books piled atop it.
“I know my alphabet,” I said sharply as he laid a piece of paper in front of me. “I’m not that stupid.” I twisted my fingers in my lap, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs.
“I didn’t say you were stupid,” he said. “I’m just trying to determine where we should begin.” I leaned back in the cushioned seat. “Since you’ve refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.”
My face warmed. “Can’t you hire a tutor?”
He lifted a brow. “Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?”
“You’re a High Lord—don’t you have better things to do?”
“Of course. But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm.”
“You’re a real bastard, you know that?”
Rhys huffed a laugh. “I’ve been called worse. In fact, I think you’ve called me worse.” He tapped the paper in front of him. “Read that.”
A blur of letters. My throat tightened. “I can’t.”
“Try.”
The sentence had been written in elegant, concise print. His writing, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked up. “What, exactly, is your stake in all this? You said you’d tell me if I worked with you.”
“I didn’t specify when I’d tell you.” I peeled back from him as my lip curled. He shrugged. “Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe—”
“I get it.”
Rhys snorted. “Try to read it, Feyre.”
Prick. I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out in my head. “Y-you … ” The next I figured out with a combination of my silent pronunciation and logic. “Look … ”
“Good,” he murmured.
“I didn’t ask for your approval.”
Rhys chuckled.
“Ab … Absolutely.” It took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure that out. The next word was even worse. “De … Del … ”
I deigned to glance at him, brows raised.
“Delicious,” he purred.
My brows now knotted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face toward him. “You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?! That’s what you wrote?”
He leaned back in his seat. As our eyes met, sharp claws caressed my mind and his voice whispered inside my head: It’s true, isn’t it?
I jolted back, my chair groaning. “Stop that!”
But those claws now dug in—and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my blood yielded to his grip, utterly at his command as he said, The fashion of the Night Court suits you.
I couldn’t move in my seat, couldn’t even blink.
This is what happens when you leave your mental shields down. Someone with my sort of powers could slip inside, see what they want, and take your mind for themselves. Or they could shatter it. I’m currently standing on the threshold of your mind … but if I were to go deeper, all it would take would be half a thought from me and who you are, your very self, would
be wiped away.
Distantly, sweat slid down my temple.
You should be afraid. You should be afraid of this, and you should be thanking the gods-damned Cauldron that in the past three months, no one with my sorts of gifts has run into you. Now shove me out.
I couldn’t. Those claws were everywhere—digging into every thought, every piece of self. He pushed a little harder.
Shove. Me. Out.
I didn’t know where to begin. I blindly pushed and slammed myself into him, into those claws that were everywhere, as if I were a top loosed in a circle of mirrors.
His laughter, low and soft, filled my mind, my ears. That way, Feyre.
In answer, a little open path gleamed inside my mind. The road out.
It’d take me forever to unhook each claw and shove the mass of his presence out that narrow opening. If I could wash it away—
A wave. A wave of self, of me, to sweep all of him out—
I didn’t let him see the plan take form as I rallied myself into a cresting wave and struck.
The claws loosened—reluctantly. As if letting me win this round. He merely said, “Good.”
My bones, my breath and blood, they were mine again. I slumped in my seat.
“Not yet,” he said. “Shield. Block me out so I can’t get back in.”
I already wanted to go somewhere quiet and sleep for a while—
Claws at that outer layer of my mind, stroking—
I imagined a wall of adamant snapping down, black as night and a foot thick. The claws retracted a breath before the wall sliced them in two.
Rhys was grinning. “Very nice. Blunt, but nice.”
I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the piece of paper and shredded it in two, then four. “You’re a pig.”
“Oh, most definitely. But look at you—you read that whole sentence, kicked me out of your mind, and shielded. Excellent work.”
“Don’t condescend to me.”
“I’m not. You’re reading at a level far higher than I anticipated.”
That burning returned to my cheeks. “But mostly illiterate.”
“At this point, it’s about practice, spelling, and more practice. You could be reading novels by Nynsar. And if you keep adding to those shields, you might very well keep me out entirely by then, too.”
A Court of Mist and Fury Page 6