A Court of Silver Flames

by Sarah J. Maas

  She was too tired to object, practically flinging herself onto it and staring at the sky.

  The blue bowl arched into forever, the sun stinging against the sweat on her face. Wisps of clouds drifted through the dazzling blue, unconcerned with her entirely.

  Her mind had become as clear as that sky, the fog and pressing shadows gone. “Do you like flying?” She didn’t know where the question came from.

  He peered down at her. “I love it.” The truth rang out in those words. “It’s freedom and joy and challenge.”

  “I met a female shop owner at Windhaven who’d had her wings clipped.” She turned her head from the sky to look over at him. His face had tightened. “Why do Illyrians do that?”

  “To control their women,” Cassian said with quiet anger. “It’s an old tradition. Rhys and I tried to stamp it out by making it illegal, but change takes a while amongst the High Fae. For stubborn asses like the Illyrians, it takes even longer. Emerie—I’m assuming that’s who you met, since she’s the only female shop owner—was one who slipped through the cracks. It was during Amarantha’s reign, and … a lot of shit slipped through the cracks.”

  His eyes turned haunted, not only from what had been done to Emerie by her father, Nesta could tell, but at the memories of those fifty years. The guilt.

  And perhaps it was to save him from reliving those memories, to banish that unwarranted guilt in his eyes, that she nestled against the mat and said, “Cooldown.”

  “You sound eager.”

  She met his stare. “I …” She swallowed. Hated herself for balking, and forced herself to say, “The breathing makes my head stop being so …” Horrible. Awful. Miserable. “Loud.”

  “Ah.” Understanding washed over his face. “Mine too.”

  For a moment, she held his gaze, watched the wind tug at the strands of his shoulder-length hair. The instinct to touch the sable locks had her pressing her palms to the mat, as if physically restraining herself.

  “Right.” Cassian cleared his throat. “Cooldown.”

  She’d done well. Really damn well.

  Nesta finished the cooldown and sprawled on the black mat, as if needing to piece herself together. Rally her strength.

  Cassian let her, rising to his feet and walking to the water station to the right of the archway. “You need to drink as much water as you can,” he said, taking two glasses and filling them from the ewer on the small table. He returned to her side, sipping from his own.

  Nesta remained prone, limbs loose, eyes closed, the sunlight making her hair, her sweaty skin, shine. He couldn’t stop the image from rising: of her lying in his bed like this, sated, her body limp with pleasure.

  He swallowed hard. She cracked open an eye, sitting up slowly, and took the water he extended. Chugged it, realized how thirsty she was, and eased to her feet. He watched as she aimed for the ewer, filling her glass and draining it twice more before she finally set it down.

  “You never told me what you wanted for the second hour of training,” he said eventually.

  She looked over a shoulder. Her skin was rosy in a way he hadn’t seen for a long, long time, her eyes bright. The breathing, she’d said, had helped her. Settled her. Looking at the slight change on her face, he believed it.

  What would happen when the high wore off remained to be seen. Small steps, he assured himself. Small, small steps.

  Nesta said, “The second hour was on the house.”

  She didn’t smile, didn’t so much as wink, but Cassian grinned. “Generous of you.”

  She rolled her eyes, but without her usual venom. “I have to change before I go to the library.”

  As Nesta entered the archway, the gloom of the stairwell beyond it, Cassian blurted, “I didn’t mean what I said last night—about everyone hating you.”

  She halted, her blue-gray eyes frosting. “It’s true.”

  “It’s not.” He dared one step closer. “You’re here because we don’t hate you.” He cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair. “I wanted you to know that. That we don’t—that I don’t hate you.”

  She weighed whatever the hell lay in his stare. Likely more than was wise to let her see. But she said quietly, “And I have never hated you, Cassian.”

  With that, she walked through the doorway into the House, as if she hadn’t hit him right in the gut, first with the words, then by using his name.

  It wasn’t until she’d vanished down the stairs that he released the breath he’d been holding.

  CHAPTER

  13

  She was starving. It was the only thought that occupied Nesta as she shelved book after book. That, and how sore her body was. Her thighs burned with each foot she walked up and down the ramp of the library, her arms unbearably stiff with each book she lifted to its resting place.

  That much soreness, just from stretches and balance exercises. She didn’t want to consider what a workout like the ones she’d seen Cassian go through would do to her.

  She was pathetic for being so weak. Pathetic for now being unable to walk so much as a step without grimacing.

  “Cooldown, my ass,” she grumbled, heaving a tome into her hands. She peered at the title and groaned. It belonged on the other side of this level—a good five-minute walk across the central atrium and down the endless hall. Her throbbing legs might very well give out halfway there.

  Her stomach gurgled. “I’ll deal with you later,” she told the book, and scanned the other titles remaining in her cart. None, fortunately or unfortunately, needed to be shelved in the section that book belonged in. To lug the cart all the way over there would be exhausting—better to just carry the tome, even if it was an essentially meaningless trip to deposit one book.

  Not that she had anything better to do with her time. Her day. Her life.

  Whatever clarity she’d felt in the training ring levels and levels above fogged up again. Whatever calm and quiet she’d managed to capture in her head had dissipated like smoke. Only moving would keep it at bay.

  Nesta found the next shelf required—quite a ways above her head, with no stool in sight. She rose onto her toes, legs shrieking in protest, but it was too high. Nesta was on the taller side for a female, standing a good two inches above Feyre, but this shelf was out of reach. Grunting, she attempted to shelve the book with her fingertips, arms straining.

  “Oh, good. It’s you,” a familiar female voice said from down the row. Nesta pivoted to discover Gwyn striding swiftly toward her, arms laden with books and coppery hair shimmering in the dim light.

  Nesta didn’t bother to look pleasant as she lowered herself fully onto her feet.

  Gwyn angled her head, as if finally realizing what she’d been doing. “Can’t you use magic to put it up on the shelf?”

  “No.” The word was cool and sullen.

  Gwyn’s brows twitched toward each other. “You don’t mean to tell me you’ve been shelving everything by hand?”

  “How else would I do it?”

  Gwyn’s teal eyes narrowed. “You have power, though, don’t you?”

  “It’s none of your concern.” It was no one’s concern. She had none of the High Fae’s usual gifts. Her power—that thing—was utterly alien. Grotesque.

  But Gwyn shrugged. “Very well.” She dumped her books right into Nesta’s arms. “These can go back.”

  Nesta staggered under the books’ weight and glared.

  Gwyn ignored the look, instead glancing around before lowering her voice. “Have you seen volume seven of Lavinia’s The Great War?”

  Nesta scanned her memory. “No. I haven’t come across that one.”

  Gwyn frowned. “It’s not on its shelf.”

  “So someone else has it.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” She released a dramatic breath.

  “Why?”

  Gwyn’s voice quieted into a conspiratorial whisper. “I work for someone who is very … demanding.”

  Memory tugged at Nesta. Someone named Mer
rill, Clotho had told her the other day. Her right hand. “I take it you’re not fond of the person?”

  Gwyn leaned against one of the shelves, crossing her arms with a casualness that belied her priestess’s robes. Again, she wore no hood and no blue stone atop her head. “Honestly, while I consider many of the females here to be my sisters, there are a few who are not what I would consider nice.”

  Nesta snorted.

  Gwyn again peered down the row. “You know why we’re all here.” Shadows swarmed her eyes—the first Nesta had seen there. “We all have endured …” She rubbed her temple. “So I hate, I hate to even speak ill of any one of my sisters here. But Merrill is unpleasant. To everyone. Even Clotho.”

  “Because of her experiences?”

  “I don’t know,” Gwyn said. “All I know is that I was assigned to work with Merrill and aid in her research, and I might have made a teensy mistake.” She grimaced.

  “What manner of mistake?”

  Gwyn blew out a sigh toward the darkened ceiling. “I was supposed to deliver volume seven of The Great War to Merrill yesterday, along with a stack of other books, and I could have sworn I did, but this morning, while I was in her office, I looked at the stack and saw I’d given her volume eight instead.”

  Nesta reined in her eye rolling. “And this is a bad thing?”

  “She’ll kill me when it’s not there for her to read today.” Gwyn hopped from foot to foot. “Which could be any moment. I got away the instant I could, but the book isn’t on the shelf.” She halted her fidgeting. “Even if I found the book, she’d spot me swapping it into the pile.”

  “And you can’t tell her?” Gwyn couldn’t be serious about the killing thing. Though with the faeries, Nesta supposed it might be a possibility. Despite this place being one of peace.

  “Gods, no. Merrill doesn’t accept mistakes. The book is supposed to be there, I told her it was there, and … I messed up.” The priestess’s face paled. She looked almost ill.

  “Why does it matter?”

  Emotion stirred in those remarkable eyes. “Because I don’t like to fail. I can’t …” Gwyn shook her head. “I don’t want to make any more mistakes.”

  Nesta didn’t know how to unpack that statement. So she just said, “Ah.”

  Gwyn went on, “These females took me in. Gave me shelter and healing and family.” Again, her large eyes darkened. “I cannot stand to fail them in anything. Especially someone as demanding as Merrill. Even when it might seem trivial.”

  Admirable, though Nesta was loath to admit it. “Have you left this mountain since you arrived?”

  “No. Once we come in, we do not leave unless it is time for us to depart—back to the world at large. Though some of us remain forever.”

  “And never see daylight again? Never feel fresh air?”

  “We have windows, in our dormitories.” At Nesta’s confused expression, she clarified, “They’re glamoured from sight on the mountainside. Only the High Lord knows about them, since they’re his spells. And you now, I suppose.”

  “But you don’t leave?”

  “No,” Gwyn said. “We don’t.”

  Nesta knew she could let the conversation end there, but she asked, “And what do you do with the time you’re not in the library? Practice your … religious things?”

  Gwyn huffed a soft laugh. “In part. We honor the Mother, and the Cauldron, and the Forces That Be. We have a service at dawn and at dusk, and on every holy day.”

  Nesta must have made a face of distaste because Gwyn snorted. “It’s not so dull as all that. The services are beautiful, the songs as fair as any you’d hear in a music hall.”

  That did sound rather interesting.

  “I enjoy the dusk services,” Gwyn continued. “The music was always my favorite part of it, you know. I mean, not here. I was a priestess—an acolyte still—before I came here.” She added a shade quietly, “In Sangravah.”

  The name sounded familiar to Nesta, but she couldn’t place it.

  Gwyn shook her head, her face pale enough that her freckles stood out in stark relief. “I need to return to Merrill before she starts wondering where I am. And come up with some way to save my hide when she can’t find that book in the pile.” She jerked her chin to the books in Nesta’s hands. “Thanks for that.”

  Nesta only nodded, and the priestess was gone, coppery-brown hair fading from sight.

  She made it back to her cart with minimal wincing and grunting, though standing still for so long with Gwyn had made it nearly impossible for her to start walking again.

  A few priestesses drifted by, either directly past her or on one of the levels above or below, utterly silent. This whole place was utterly silent. The only bit of color and sound came from Gwyn.

  Would she remain here, locked beneath the earth, for the rest of her immortal life?

  It seemed a shame. Understandable for what Gwyn must have endured, yes—what all these females had endured and survived. But a shame as well.

  Nesta didn’t know why she did it. Why she waited until no one was around before she said into the hushed air of the library, “Can you do me a favor?”

  She could have sworn she sensed a pause in the dust and dimness, a piqued interest. So she asked, “Can you get me volume seven of The Great War? By someone named Lavinia.” The House had no problem sending her food—perhaps it could find the tome for her.

  Again, Nesta could have sworn she felt that pause of interest, then a sudden vacancy.

  And then a thump sounded on her cart as a gray leather-bound book with silver lettering landed atop her pile. Nesta’s lips curved upward. “Thank you.” A soft, warm breeze brushed past her legs, like a cat wending between them in warm greeting and farewell.

  When the next priestess passed, Nesta approached her. “Excuse me.”

  The female halted so swiftly her pale robes swayed with her, the blue stone on her hood gleaming in the soft faelight. “Yes?” Her voice was soft, breathy. Curly black hair peeked out from her robe, and rich brown skin gleamed on her lovely, delicate hands. Like Clotho, she wore her hood over her face.

  “Merrill’s office—where is it?” Nesta gestured to the cart behind her. “I have a few books for her but don’t know where she works.”

  The priestess pointed. “Three levels up—Level Two—at the end of the hall on your right.”

  “Thank you.”

  The priestess hurried along, as if even that moment of social interaction had been too much.

  But Nesta gazed toward the level three stories above.

  Her aching body did not make for easy stealth work, but Nesta mercifully didn’t encounter anyone on her way up. She knocked on the shut wood door.

  “Enter.”

  Nesta opened the door to a rectangular cell of a room, occupied by a desk on the far side and two bookshelves lining both long walls. A small pallet lay to the left of the desk, a blanket and pillow neatly aligned. As if the hooded priestess with her back to Nesta sometimes couldn’t be bothered to return to the dormitory to sleep.

  No sign of Gwyn. Nesta wondered if she’d already been dismissed for her so-called failure.

  But Nesta took a few steps into the room, surveying the shelf to her right before she said, “I brought the books you requested.”

  The female hunched over her work, the scratching of her pen filling the room. “Fine.” She didn’t so much as turn. Nesta scanned the other shelf.

  There—volume eight of The Great War. Nesta had taken a silent step toward it when the priestess’s head snapped up. “I didn’t ask for any more books. And where’s Gwyneth? She should have returned half an hour ago.”

  Nesta asked as blandly and stupidly as she could, “Who’s Gwyneth?”

  Merrill turned at that, and Nesta was greeted with a surprisingly young face—and a stunningly beautiful one. All the High Fae were beautiful, but Merrill made even Mor look drab.

  Hair white as fresh snow contrasted against the light brown of her skin, and eye
s the color of a twilight sky blinked once, twice. As if focusing on the here and now and not whatever work she’d been doing. She noted Nesta’s leathers, the lack of any robes or stone atop her braided hair, and demanded, “Who are you?”

  “Nesta.” She hefted the books in her arms. “I was told to bring these to you.”

  Volume eight of The Great War lay mere inches away. If she just stuck out a hand to her left, she could snatch it off the shelf. Swap it out with volume seven from the stack in her arms.

  Merrill’s remarkable eyes narrowed. She looked as young as Nesta, yet an ornery sort of energy buzzed around her. “Who gave you those orders?”

  Nesta blinked, the portrait of stupidity. “A priestess.”

  Merrill’s full mouth tightened. “Which priestess?”

  Gwyn was right in her assessment of this female. Being assigned to work with her seemed more like a punishment than an honor. “I don’t know. You all wear those hoods.”

  “These are the sacred clothes of our order, girl. Not those hoods.” Merrill returned to her papers.

  Nesta asked, because it would piss off the female, “So you didn’t ask for these books, Roslin?”

  Merrill threw down her pen and bared her teeth. “You think I’m Roslin?”

  “I was told to bring these books to Roslin, and someone said your—her office was here.”

  “Roslin is on Level Four. I am on Level Two.” She said it as if it implied some sort of hierarchy.

  Nesta shrugged again. And might have enjoyed the hell out of it.

  Merrill seethed, but returned to her work. “Roslin,” she muttered. “Insufferable, inane Roslin. Endless prattling.”

  Nesta reached a stealthy hand toward the shelf to her left.

  Merrill whipped her head around, and Nesta snapped her arm down to her side. “Never disturb me again.” Merrill pointed to the door. “Get out and shut the door behind you. If you see that silly Gwyneth, tell her she’s expected here immediately.”

  “Apologies,” Nesta said, unable to keep the glimmer of annoyance out of her eyes, but Merrill was already twisting back to her desk.