To the burn mark, still sparking like an ember.
The entire wood block was smoldering from within. He touched his palm to it. The wood was cold as ice.
The block dissolved into a pile of cinders.
Cassian stared in stunned silence, the smoking wood hissing in the rain.
Lucien came up beside him. He only said again, voice solemn, “Mother spare you all.”
CHAPTER
41
Helion, High Lord of the Day Court, arrived at the Hewn City the next afternoon on a flying horse.
He’d wanted to enter the dark city in a golden chariot led by four snow-white horses with manes of golden fire, Rhys had told Cassian, but Rhys had forbidden the chariot and horses, and let Helion know that he could winnow in or not come at all.
Hence the pegasus. Helion’s idea of a compromise.
Cassian had heard the rumors of Helion’s rare pegasuses. Myth claimed his prized stallion had flown so high the sun had scorched him black, but beholding the beast now … Well, Cassian might have been envious, if he didn’t have wings himself.
The winged horses were rare—so rare that it was said Helion’s seven breeding pairs of flying horses were the only ones left. Lore held that there had once been far more of them before recorded history, and that most had just vanished, as if they’d been devoured by the sky itself. Their population had dwindled further in the last thousand years, for reasons no one could explain.
This hadn’t been helped by Amarantha, who had butchered three dozen of Helion’s pegasuses in addition to burning so many of his libraries. The seven pegasus pairs that remained had survived thanks to being set free before Amarantha’s cronies could reach their pens in the highest tower of Helion’s palace.
Helion’s most beloved pair—this black stallion, Meallan, and his mate—hadn’t produced offspring in three hundred years, and that last foal hadn’t made it out of weaning before he’d succumbed to an illness no healer could remedy.
According to legend, the pegasuses had come from the island the Prison sat upon—had once fed in fair meadows that had long given way to moss and mist. Perhaps that was part of the decline: their homeland had vanished, and whatever had sustained them there was no longer.
Cassian let himself admire the sight of Meallan alighting on the black stones of the courtyard before the towering gates into the mountain, the stallion’s mane blowing in the wind off his jet-black wings. Few things remained in the faerie realms that could summon any sort of wonder from Cassian, but that magnificent stallion, proud and haughty and only half-tamed, snatched the breath from his chest.
“Incredible,” Rhys murmured, similar admiration shining in his face.
Feyre beamed with delight, and Cassian knew from that look that she’d be painting this beast—and possibly its stunning master as well. Azriel, too, blinked in awe as the stallion pawed at the ground, huffing, and Helion patted the pegasus’s thick, muscular neck before dismounting.
“Well met,” Rhys said, striding forward.
“It’s not the parade I wished,” Helion said, clasping Rhys’s hand, “but Meallan knows how to make an entrance.” He let out a whistle, and the pegasus pivoted gracefully despite his size, flapped those mighty wings, and leaped back into the skies to wait elsewhere for his master.
Helion grinned at Feyre, who’d watched the stallion soar into the clouds with wide eyes. He said, “I’ll take you on a ride if you wish.”
Feyre smiled. “I would ordinarily take you up on that offer, but I’m afraid I can’t risk it.”
Helion’s brows lifted. For a heartbeat, Rhys and Feyre conferred silently, and then Rhys nodded.
Rhys’s voice filled Cassian’s head a second later. We’re telling him.
Cassian kept his face neutral. Why risk it?
Rhys said solemnly, Because we need his libraries. To find any way to save Feyre, Rhys didn’t say. His High Lord went on, And because you and Azriel were right: it’s only a matter of time until Feyre is showing. She’s indulged my request for a shield, but she’ll have my balls if I suggest glamouring her to hide the pregnancy. Rhys grimaced. So here we go.
Cassian nodded. I’ve got your back, brother.
Rhys threw him a grateful glance, and then must have lifted his shield on his mate because Feyre’s scent—that wonderful, lovely scent—filled the air. Helion’s eyes widened, going right to her middle, where her hand now rested against the small swelling. He let out a laugh. “So this is why you needed to learn about impenetrable shields, Rhysand.” Helion leaned in to kiss Feyre’s cheek. “My congratulations to you both.”
Feyre beamed, but Rhys’s smile was less open. If Helion noted it, he said nothing. The High Lord of Day considered Cassian and Azriel, then frowned. “Where’s my beautiful Mor?”
Az said tightly, “Away.”
“Pity. She’s far nicer to look at than either of you.”
Cassian rolled his eyes.
Helion smirked, picking an invisible fleck of lint from his draped white robe, then faced Rhys. His dark brown skin gleamed over the strong muscles of his bare thighs and legs, the golden sandals that laced up his calves useless in the snowcapped terrain around them. The High Lord carried no weapons—the only metal on him was the golden armband around one muscled biceps, fashioned after a snake, and the spiked golden crown atop his shoulder-length black hair. There would never be any mistaking Helion for anything but a High Lord, yet Cassian had always rather liked his casual, irreverent air. The male drawled to Rhys, “Well? You wanted me to do some digging into a spell? Or was that an excuse to get me to your twisted pleasure palace under this mountain?”
Rhys sighed. “Please don’t make me regret bringing you here, Helion.”
Helion’s golden eyes lit. “Where would the fun be if I didn’t?”
Feyre linked her arm through his. “I missed you, my friend.”
Helion patted her hand. “I’ll deny it to the grave if you tell anyone, but I missed you too, Cursebreaker.”
“I like this palace much more than the one beneath,” Helion said an hour later, surveying the moonstone pillars and gauzy curtains blowing in a mild breeze that belied the snow-crusted mountain range around them. Beyond the palace’s shields, Cassian knew that breeze became a howling, bitter wind that could flay the flesh from one’s bones.
Helion flung himself into a low-lying chair before one of the endless views, sighing. “All right. Do you want my assessment now that we’re out of the Hewn City?”
Feyre slid into the seat beside his, but Cassian, Rhys, and Az remained standing, the shadowsinger leaning against a pillar, half-hidden from sight. Feyre asked, “Are the soldiers enchanted?”
Helion had spoken to and briefly touched the hands of the two Autumn Court soldiers chained in that room, kept alive and fed by Rhys’s magic. Helion’s face had tensed when he’d touched their hands—and he’d then murmured that he’d seen enough.
Nothing in the Hewn City had seemed to disturb him until that moment. Not the towering black pillars and their carvings, not the wicked people who occupied it, not the utter darkness of the place. If it reminded Helion of his time Under the Mountain, he did not let on. Amarantha had modeled her court there after this one, apparently—a sorry replica, Rhys had said.
“Enchanted isn’t the right word,” Helion said, frowning. “Their bodies and actions are indeed not their own, but no spell lies upon them. I can feel spells—like threads. Ones that can enchant feel like bindings around an individual. I sensed none of that.”
“So what ails them?” Rhys asked.
“I don’t know,” Helion admitted with unusual gravity. “Rather than a thread, it was more like a mist. A fog, exactly as you described it, Rhysand. There was nothing to grasp on to, nothing tangible to break, yet it was there.”
Rhys asked, “Does it feel less like a spell and more like … an influence?”
Shit. Shit.
Helion rubbed his jaw. “I can’t explain how, but it’s as i
f this fog around their mind sways them.” He noted their expressions. “What is it?”
Feyre’s mouth tightened. “The Crown—part of the Dread Trove.”
And then it all came out, Queen Briallyn and her hunt for the Trove, Koschei’s involvement, the Mask that Nesta had retrieved. Only Eris’s secrets regarding the depths of Beron’s treachery remained unspoken. When Feyre finished, Helion shook his head slowly. “I thought we’d at least have a break from trying to avoid disasters like this.”
“Just the Harp remains at large, then,” Azriel said. He remained leaning against the pillar, swathed in shadows. “If Briallyn has the Crown, it’s possible she’s had it for a while—and it’s why the other queens fled to their own territories. Maybe they thought she’d use it on them, and ran. Maybe she even found it here during the war, while we were all distracted with fighting Hybern, and used it to pull her forces back, to bide her time. It could be what brought her to Koschei’s attention—that it’s what he wants from her.”
“I can buy that,” Feyre said, “but why use it on Eris’s soldiers to attack our people in Oorid? What’s the motive?”
“Perhaps it was to let us know she’s aware that we know of her plans,” Rhys suggested.
“But how did she know we’d be in the bog?” Cassian asked. “Those soldiers didn’t have the power to winnow—they would have had to travel on foot for weeks before they got there.”
“They’ve been missing for more than a month,” Feyre pointed out.
Helion said, “Remember that Briallyn is Made, too. She might not be able to scry for the Cauldron, but she can scry for the Dread Trove as well as Nesta Archeron can. She could have learned the Mask was in Oorid, but did not dare to venture into its darkness. It’s possible that she planted the soldiers to take the Mask from you once you found it.”
“Or trick us into killing them, thus making an enemy of the Autumn Court,” Cassian said.
“But Briallyn has to be stupid,” Feyre said, “if she thinks those soldiers would be enough to overpower any of us.”
Helion nodded to Feyre. “You said the Mask is here now? May I see it?”
“We need your help with it, actually,” Feyre said. “Rhys warded and locked the room where the Mask lies, but it opened the locks to let my sister in, likely because she’s Made. And if she can get in, it’s possible Briallyn could as well.” Feyre slid her tattooed hands into her pockets. “Can you show Nesta how to ward it herself? Something perhaps with a bit more … oomph?”
“Oomph?” Rhys asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Oomph,” Feyre said, throwing him a glare. “We can’t all be silver-tongued like you.”
Rhys winked. “Good thing you benefit from it, Feyre darling.”
Cassian chose to ignore the innuendo, and the flicker of arousal from both of them. Helion, however, snickered.
Azriel cleared his throat. “Nesta’s waiting.”
“She’s here?” Helion practically shimmered with golden light.
“Yes,” Feyre said simply, rising from the chair. Cassian didn’t miss the sultry look his High Lady gave Rhys as she passed by, aiming for the rooms at the northern end of the palace. And he didn’t miss the deep laugh Rhys gave her in return, full of sensual promise.
He couldn’t help the pang in his chest at the casual intimacy, the blatant affection and love. A far cry from just sex.
Helion trailed, commenting on the palace’s beauty. Cassian blocked him out, too busy mulling over how Nesta hadn’t so much as bothered to object when he’d left her bed. And hadn’t so much as approached him for more since.
He’d held himself back, especially since she seemed to drive herself into the ground during practice, working out whatever she needed to in her heart, her mind. But he hadn’t been able to stop remembering it—the sex, and that image of her, her backside still upraised as she lay on the bed, her beautiful sex swollen and gleaming, wet with his seed.
“What are you thinking about?” Helion drawled as they approached a shut wooden door.
Cassian straightened. He hadn’t realized his thoughts had dragged such a scent from him. He grinned. “Your mother.”
Helion chuckled. “I always forget how much I like you.”
“Happy to remind you.” Cassian winked.
Feyre reached the door, knocked, and then there she was—Nesta.
She sat at the table where the Mask rested, a book open before her. From the speed with which she shut the volume, Cassian knew she’d been reading one of the romances she, Emerie, and Gwyn traded amongst them.
Cassian found himself tensing as Helion stepped into the room, and Nesta rose. She’d worn a dark blue dress today—the first time in a month he’d seen her in one. No longer did it hang off her. She’d packed on enough weight that the bodice was again formfitting, and those lush breasts swelled gracefully above the scooped neckline.
Helion offered a bow of his head, the epitome of courtly grace. “Lady Nesta.”
Nesta bobbed a curtsy, but her eyes cut to Feyre. “Lady?”
Feyre shrugged. “He’s being polite.”
Nesta slid her eyes to Cassian’s. “Now I understand why you find the title grating.”
He smiled, and Helion blinked—as if shocked she’d forgotten a High Lord stood before her.
But Nesta had blown past Helion the first time they’d met, too, utterly unimpressed.
Cassian said to her, “It never gets easier.”
Nesta faced Helion again, taking in that spiked golden crown and the draped white robe. “Was that your winged horse that flew over earlier?”
Helion’s smile was a thing of cultivated beauty. “He is my finest stallion.”
“He’s lovely.”
“As are you.”
Nesta angled her head as Cassian found himself near-breathless, waiting for her reply. Feyre and Rhys seemed to be trying not to laugh, and Azriel was the portrait of cool boredom.
Nesta surveyed Helion for long enough that he shifted on his feet. A High Lord shifted on his feet under her gaze. She said at last, “I appreciate the compliment,” and that was that.
That pause while she’d surveyed Helion had been a courtier’s pause. Assessing how best to strike.
Helion frowned slightly.
Rhys cleared his throat, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Well, there it is.” He pointed to the black velvet mound on the table. “Nesta?”
She pulled away the cloth. Ancient, beaten gold gleamed, and Helion hissed as a cold, strange power filled the room, whispering like a chill breeze.
Helion whirled to Nesta, all sensuality vanished. “You truly wore this and lived?” It wasn’t a question meant to be answered. “Cover it again, please. I can’t stand it.”
Rhys tucked in his wings. “It affects you that much?”
“Doesn’t it rake its cold claws down your senses?” Helion asked.
“Not as much as all that,” Feyre said. “We can sense its power, but it didn’t bother any of us so seriously.”
Helion shuddered, and Nesta threw the cloth over the Mask. As if the cloth somehow blinded it to their presence. “Perhaps an ancestor of mine once used it, and the warning of its cost is imprinted upon my blood.” Helion shook out a breath. “All right, not-Lady Nesta. Allow me to show you some warding tricks even clever Rhysand doesn’t know.”
In the end, Helion created the wards and keyed them to Nesta’s blood. A pinprick of it, courtesy of Truth-Teller, had done the job, and Cassian had found himself tensing at the sight of that little bead of red. Its scent.
It was an effort of will to tell his body there was no threat, that the blood was willing, that she was fine. But it didn’t stop him from grinding his teeth loudly enough that Feyre whispered to him beneath Nesta and Helion’s conversation, “What’s wrong with you?”
Cassian muttered back, “Nothing. Stop being such a busybody, Cursebreaker.”
Feyre shot him a sidelong glance. “You’re acting like a caged animal.” Her
lips curved upward. “Are you jealous?”
Cassian kept his voice neutral. “Of Helion?”
“I don’t see anyone else in this room who’s currently holding my sister’s hand and smiling at her.”
The bastard was indeed doing that, though Nesta remained stone-faced. “Why would I be jealous?”
Feyre’s laugh was a rustle of air.
Cassian couldn’t stop his answering grin, earning a confused glance from Azriel. Cassian shook his head, just as Nesta pulled her hand from Helion’s grip and asked, “So it’s done?”
“Once we leave this room, no one shall be able to enter it. Even you, if you do not unlock my wards, cannot enter.”
Nesta loosed a little sigh. “Good.”
“I’ll show you the unlocking spell,” Helion said, but she stepped away from him.
“No,” Nesta said abruptly. “No, I don’t want to know it.”
Silence fell.
Nesta declared to none of them in particular, “If Briallyn is hunting for the Mask, if she apprehends me, I don’t want to have any knowledge of how to free it.” It was wise, even if it made him sick to consider, but he could have sworn it was a lie. Could have sworn that Nesta didn’t want to have access to the information—for herself.
As if she might be tempted by the Mask.
Rhys said, “That’s fine. Helion can show me, and if we need the knowledge, I’ll show you.” Rhys held out a hand to Helion, indicating how he’d prefer to be shown the spell. Their fingers interlaced, their eyes going vacant, and then Rhys blinked. “Thank you.”
Azriel said, “We have to notify Eris about his soldiers’ reappearance. And what we did to them.”
Cassian surveyed his family, his friends. “How much do we tell Eris? Do we let him know we have the Mask?”
The question hung there. Then Rhys said, “Not yet.” He nodded to Cassian. “Pay Eris a visit tomorrow.” Rhys gestured to Nesta. “You go with him.”
Nesta stiffened, and Cassian tried not to gape. “Why?” she asked.
“Because you savor playing the game,” Rhys said. He’d undoubtedly noticed how smoothly she dealt with Helion’s attempts to flirt earlier. Rhys knew how to wield a tool at his disposal. “But it’s your choice,” he added.
A Court of Silver Flames Page 39