A Court of Silver Flames

by Sarah J. Maas

  That ancient Cauldron opening an eye to stare at her. To pin her in place.

  The Cauldron dragging her into itself, into the pit of Creation, taking and taking from her, merciless despite her screaming—

  Around and down, exactly as she had been pulled in by the Cauldron, crushed beneath its terrible power—

  Nausea swelled, her power with it, and her foot slipped.

  She had only a heartbeat to grab for the wall, but too late. Her knees banged into the steps, her face hitting a second later, and then she was twisting and careening down, blasting into the wall, ricocheting off and tumbling down step after step after step.

  She flung out a hand blindly, nails biting into stone. Sparks exploded as she cried out and held on.

  The world stopped moving. Her body halted its plunge.

  Sprawled across the steps, hand clutching the stone, she panted, great sawing breaths that cut with each inhale. She shut her eyes, savoring the stillness, the utter lack of motion.

  And in the quiet, pain set in. Barking, bleating pain across every part of her body.

  The coppery tang of blood filled her mouth. Something wet and warm slid down her neck. A sniff told her it was blood, too.

  And her fingernails, the ones gripping the stone steps—

  Nesta blinked at her hand. She had seen sparks.

  Her fingers were embedded in the stone, the rock glowing as if lit with an inner flame.

  Gasping, she snatched back her hand, and the stone went dark.

  But the fingerprints remained, four furrows buried in the top of the step, a single hole in the riser where her thumb had pressed.

  Icy dread sluiced through her. Sent her to her battered legs, knees groaning as she sprinted upward. Away from that handprint, forever etched in stone.

  “So, who won the fight?” Cassian asked the next morning as she sat on her rock and watched him go through his exercises.

  He hadn’t asked at breakfast about the black eye and cut chin or how stiffly she’d moved. Neither had Mor upon her arrival. That the bruising and cuts remained at all told Nesta how bad the fall had been, but as High Fae, with her improved healing, they were already on the mend.

  As a human, she supposed, the fall might have killed her. Perhaps this Fae body had its advantages. Being human, being weak in this world of monsters, was a death sentence. Her High Fae body was her best chance at survival.

  Cassian’s reticence had only lasted an hour into his routine. He stood in the center of the sparring ring, panting, sweat running down his face and neck.

  “What fight?” She examined her mangled nails. Even with the … whatever it was she’d flung out to catch herself, her nails had cracked. She didn’t let herself name what had come from within her, didn’t let herself acknowledge it. By dawn, it had been strangled into submission.

  “The one between you and the stairs.”

  Nesta cut him a glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Cassian began moving once more, drawing his sword and running through a series of movements that all seemed designed to hack a person in two. “You know: three in the morning, you leave your room to get shitfaced-drunk in town, and you’re in such a rush to conquer the steps that you fall down a good thirty of them before you can stop yourself.”

  Had he seen the step? The handprint?

  She demanded, “How do you know that?”

  He shrugged.

  “Are you watching me?” Before he could answer, she spat, “You were watching and didn’t come to help?”

  Cassian shrugged again. “You stopped falling. If you’d kept at it, someone would have eventually come to catch you before you hit the bottom.”

  She hissed at him.

  He only grinned and beckoned with a hand. “Want to join me?”

  “I should push you down those stairs.”

  Cassian sheathed his sword down his back in one elegant movement. Five hundred years of training—he must have drawn and sheathed that sword so many times it was muscle memory.

  “Well?” he demanded, an edge creeping into his voice. “If you’ve got those glorious bruises, you might as well claim it came from training and not a pathetic tumble.” He added, “How many stairs did you manage this time?”

  Sixty-six. But Nesta said, “I’m not training.”

  At the edge of the ring, males were watching them again. They’d been watching Cassian first, partially with awe and partially with what she could only assume was envy. No one moved like he did. No one even came close. But now their stares turned amused—mocking him.

  Once, last year, she might have gone up to those males and ripped them apart. Might have let a bit of that terrible power within her show so they truly believed she was a witch and would curse them and a thousand generations of their offspring if they insulted Cassian again.

  Nesta stretched out her legs, leaning her bruised palms on the stone. “Enjoy your exercises.”

  Cassian bristled. But he held out his hand again. “Please.”

  She’d never heard him say that word. It was a rope thrown between them. He’d meet her halfway—let her win the power battle, admit defeat, if she would just get off the rock.

  She told herself to get up, to take that outstretched hand.

  But she couldn’t. Couldn’t bring her body to rise.

  His hazel eyes were bright with pleading in the morning sun, the wind dancing in his dark hair. Like he was made from these mountains, crafted from wind and stone. He was so beautiful. Not in the way that Azriel and Rhys were beautiful, but in an uncut way. Savage and unrelenting.

  The first time she’d seen Cassian, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She felt like she’d spent her life surrounded by boys, and then a man—a male, she supposed—had suddenly appeared. Everything about him had radiated that confident, arrogant masculinity. It had been heady and overwhelming, and all she’d wanted, all she’d wanted for so many months, was to touch him, smell him, taste him. Get close to that strength and throw everything she was against it because she knew he’d never break, never falter, never balk.

  But the light in his eyes dimmed as he lowered his hand.

  She deserved his disappointment. Deserved his resentment and disgust. Even if it carved something vital from her.

  “Tomorrow, then,” Cassian said. He didn’t speak to her again for the rest of the day.

  CHAPTER

  11

  The private library’s doors were locked. Nesta jangled the handle, but it refused to open.

  She said quietly, “Open this door.”

  The House ignored her.

  She tried the handle again, shoving a shoulder into the door. “Open this door.”

  Nothing.

  She continued slamming her shoulder into the door. “Open this door right now.”

  The House declined to obey.

  She gritted her teeth, panting. She’d had more books than yesterday to shelve, as the priestesses had apparently heard from Gwyn that Nesta was to be their errand girl.

  So they began dumping their tomes on her cart—and a few asked her to retrieve books as well. Nesta had heeded them, if only because finding the requested books took her to new places in the library and occupied her thoughts, but by the time the clock had struck six, she was exhausted and dusty and hungry. She’d ignored the sandwich the House had laid out for her in the afternoon, and this had apparently pissed off the House enough that it now refused to allow her entry into the private library.

  “All I want,” Nesta ground out, “is a nice, hot meal and a good book.” She tried the handle again. “Please.”

  Nothing. Nothing at all.

  “Fine.” She stormed down the hall. Hunger alone carried her up to the dining room, where she found Cassian mid-meal, Azriel across from him.

  The shadowsinger’s face was solemn, his eyes wary. Cassian, his back to her, only stiffened, no doubt alerted either by her scent or the cadence of her steps.

  She didn’t speak a
s she aimed for a chair halfway down the table. A place setting and spread of food appeared as she reached her seat. She had a feeling that if she took the plate and left, it’d vanish from her hands before she reached the door.

  Nesta maintained her silence as she slid into her chair, picked up her fork, and dug into the fillet of beef and roasted asparagus.

  Cassian cleared his throat and said to Azriel, “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m not sure.” The shadowsinger’s eyes bore into her before he added, “Vassa was right to suspect something deadly amiss. Things are dangerous enough over there that it would be wiser for me to keep my base here at the House and winnow back and forth.”

  Curiosity bit deep, but Nesta said nothing. Vassa—she hadn’t seen the enchanted human queen since the war had ended. Since the young woman had tried to speak to her about how wonderful Nesta’s father had been, how he had been a true father to her, helped her and won her this temporary freedom, and on and on until Nesta’s bones were screaming to get away, her blood boiling to think that her father had found his courage for someone other than her and her sisters. That he’d been the father she had needed—but for someone else. He had let their mother die in his refusal to send his merchant fleet hunting for a cure for her, had fallen into poverty and let them starve, but had decided to fight for this stranger? This nobody queen peddling a sad tale of betrayal and loss?

  That thing deep in Nesta stirred, but she ignored it, pushed it down as best she could without the distraction of music or sex or wine. She took a sip of her water, letting it cool her throat, her belly, and supposed that would have to be enough.

  “What’d Rhys say about it?” Cassian asked around a mouthful of food.

  “Who do you think insisted I not risk a base over there?”

  “Protective bastard.” A note of affection rang in Cassian’s words, though.

  Silence fell again. Azriel nodded at her. “What happened to you?”

  She knew what he meant: the black eye that was finally fading. Her hands and chin had healed, along with the bruising on her body, but the black eye had turned greenish. By tomorrow morning, it’d be gone entirely. “Nothing,” she said without looking at Cassian.

  “She fell down the stairs,” Cassian said, not looking at her, either.

  Azriel’s silence was pointed before he asked, “Did someone … push you?”

  “Asshole,” Cassian growled.

  Nesta lifted her eyes from her plate enough to note the amusement in Azriel’s gaze, even though no smile graced his sensuous mouth.

  Cassian went on, “I told her earlier today: if she’d bother to train, she’d at least have bragging rights for the bruises.”

  Azriel took a calm sip of his water. “Why aren’t you training, Nesta?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  Cassian muttered, “Don’t waste your breath, Az.”

  She glared at him. “I’m not training in that miserable village.”

  Cassian glared right back. “You’ve been given an order. You know the consequences. If you don’t get off that fucking rock by the end of this week, what happens next is out of my hands.”

  “So you’ll tattle to your precious High Lord?” she crooned. “Big, tough warrior needs oh-so-powerful Rhysand to fight his battles?”

  “Don’t you fucking talk about Rhys with that tone,” Cassian snarled.

  “Rhys is an asshole,” Nesta snapped. “He is an arrogant, preening asshole.”

  Azriel sat back in his seat, eyes simmering with anger, but said nothing.

  “That’s bullshit,” Cassian spat, the Siphons on the backs of his hands burning like ruby flames. “You know that is bullshit, Nesta.”

  “I hate him,” she seethed.

  “Good. He hates you, too,” Cassian shot back. “Everyone fucking hates you. Is that what you want? Because congratulations, it’s happened.”

  Azriel let out a long, long breath.

  Cassian’s words pelted her, one after another. Hit her somewhere low and soft, and hit hard. Her fingers curled into claws, scraping along the table as she flung back at him, “And I suppose now you’ll tell me that you are the only person who doesn’t hate me, and I’m supposed to feel something like gratitude, and agree to train with you.”

  “Now I tell you I’m done.”

  The words rumbled between them. Nesta blinked, the only sign of surprise she’d allow.

  Azriel tensed, as if surprised as well.

  But she sliced into Cassian before he could go on. “Does that mean you’re done panting after me as well? Because what a relief that will be, to know you’ve finally taken the hint.”

  Cassian’s muscled chest heaved, his throat working. “You want to rip yourself apart, go right ahead. Implode all you like.” He stood, meal half-finished. “The training was supposed to help you. Not punish you. I don’t know why you don’t fucking get that.”

  “I told you: I’m not training in that miserable village.”

  “Fine.” Cassian stalked out, his pounding steps fading down the hall.

  Alone with Azriel, Nesta bared her teeth at him.

  Azriel watched her with that cool quiet, keeping utterly still. Like he saw everything in her head. Her bruised heart.

  She couldn’t bear it. So she stood, only two bites taken from her food, and left the room as well.

  She returned to the library. The lights blazed as brightly as they had during the day, and a few lingering priestesses wandered the levels. She found her cart, filled again with books needing to be shelved.

  No one spoke to her, and she spoke to no one as she began to work, with only the roaring silence in her head for company.

  Amren had been wrong. Keep reaching out your hand was utter bullshit when the person it was extended to could bite hard enough to rip off fingers.

  Cassian sat on the flat top of the mountain in which the House of Wind had been built, peering down into the open-air training ring beneath him. The stars glinted overhead, and a brisk autumn breeze that whispered of changing leaves and crisp nights flowed past him. Below, Velaris was a golden sparkle, accented along the Sidra with a rainbow of color.

  He had never failed at anything. Not like this.

  And he’d been so stupidly desperate, so stupidly hopeful, that he hadn’t believed she’d truly refuse. Until today, when he’d seen her on that rock and known she’d wanted to get up, but watched her shut down the instinct. Watched her clamp that steel will over herself.

  “You’re not the brooding type.”

  Cassian started, whipping his head to find Feyre sitting beside him. She dangled her feet into the emptiness, her golden-brown hair ruffled by the wind as she peered into the training pit. “Did you fly in?”

  “Winnowed. Rhys said you were ‘thinking loudly.’ ” Feyre’s mouth quirked to the side. “I figured I’d see what was happening.”

  A fine skin of power remained wrapped around his High Lady, invisible to the naked eye but glittering with strength. Cassian nodded toward her. “Why’s Rhysie still got that ironclad shield on you?” It was mighty enough to guard all of Velaris.

  “Because he’s a pain in the ass,” Feyre said, but smiled softly. “He’s still learning how it works, and I still haven’t figured out how to break free of it. But with the queens a renewed threat, and Beron in the mix, especially if Koschei is their puppet master, Rhys is perfectly happy to leave it on.”

  “Everything with those queens is a fucking headache,” Cassian grumbled. “Hopefully, Az will figure out what they’re really up to. Or at least what Briallyn and Koschei are up to.”

  Rhys was still contemplating what to do about Eris’s demands. Cassian supposed he’d get his orders on that front soon. And would then have to deal with the asshole. General to general.

  “Part of me dreads what Azriel will find,” Feyre said, leaning back on her hands. “Mor’s heading off to Vallahan again tomorrow. I worry about that, too. That she’ll co
me back with worse news about their intentions.”

  “We’ll deal with it.”

  “Spoken like a true general.”

  Cassian knocked Feyre’s shoulder with his wing, a casual, affectionate gesture. One he never dared make with the females of any Illyrian community. Illyrians were psychotic on a good day about who touched their wings and how, and wing-touching outside of the bedroom, training, or mortal combat was an enormous taboo. But Rhys never cared, and Cassian had needed the contact. Always needed physical contact, he’d learned. Probably thanks to a childhood spent with precious little of it.

  Feyre seemed to understand his need for a reassuring touch, because she said, “How bad is it?”

  “Bad.” It was all he could bring himself to admit.

  “But she’s going to the library?”

  “She went back to the library tonight. She’s still down there for all I know.”

  Feyre gave a hmm of contemplation, gazing at the city. His High Lady looked so young—he always forgot how young she truly was, considering what she’d already faced and achieved in her life. At twenty-one, he’d still been drinking and brawling and fucking, unconcerned with anything and anybody except his ambition to be the most skilled of Illyrian warriors since Enalius himself. At twenty-one, Feyre had saved their world, mated, and found true happiness.

  Feyre asked, “Did Nesta say why she won’t train?”

  “Because she hates me.”

  Feyre snorted. “Cassian, Nesta does not hate you. Believe me.”

  “She sure as shit acts like it.”

  Feyre shook her head. “No, she doesn’t.” Her words were pained enough that he frowned.

  “She doesn’t hate you, either,” he said quietly.

  Feyre shrugged. The gesture made his chest ache. “For a while, I thought she didn’t. But now I don’t know.”

  “I don’t understand why you two can’t just …” He struggled for the right word.

  “Get along? Be civil? Smile at each other?” Feyre’s laugh was hollow. “It’s always been that way.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea. I mean, it was always that way with us, and our mother. She only had an interest in Nesta. She ignored me, and saw Elain as barely more than a doll to dress up, but Nesta was hers. Our mother made sure we knew it. Or she just cared so little what we thought or did that she didn’t bother to hide it from us.” Resentment and long-held pain laced every word. That a mother would do such a thing to her children … “But when we fell into poverty, when I started hunting, it got worse. Our mother was gone, and our father wasn’t exactly present. He wasn’t fully there. So it was me and Nesta, always at each other’s throats.” Feyre rubbed her face. “I’m too exhausted to go over every detail. It’s all just a tangled mess.”