A Court of Mist and Fury (30 page)

I mouthed it.

Stop, stop, stop
.

Think
.

I had survived the Wyrm—survived Amarantha. And I had been granted gifts. Considerable gifts.

Like strength.

I
was
strong.

I slammed a hand against the chimney wall, as low as I could get. The Weaver hissed at the debris that rained down. I smashed my fist again, rallying that strength.

I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.

I was a survivor, and I was strong.

I would not be weak, or helpless again. I would not,
could not
be broken. Tamed.

I pounded my fist into the bricks over and over, and the Weaver paused.

Paused long enough for the brick I’d loosened to slide free into my waiting palm.

And for me to hurl it at her hideous, horrible face as hard as I could.

Bone crunched and she roared, black blood spraying. But I rammed my shoulders into the sides of the chimney, skin tearing beneath my leather. I kept going, going, going, until I was stone breaking stone, until nothing and no one held me back and I was scaling the chimney.

I didn’t dare stop, not as I reached the lip and hauled myself out, tumbling onto the thatched roof. Which was not thatched with hay at all.

But hair.

And with all that fat lining the chimney—all that fat now gleaming on my skin … the hair clung to me. In clumps and strands and tufts. Bile rose, but the front door banged open—a shriek following it.

No—not that way. Not to the ground.

Up, up, up.

A tree branch hung low and close by, and I scrambled across that heinous roof, trying not to think about who and what I was stepping on, what clung to my skin, my clothes. A heartbeat later, I’d jumped onto
the waiting branch, scrambling into the leaves and moss as the Weaver screamed, “
WHERE ARE YOU
?”

But I was running through the tree—running toward another one nearby. I leaped from branch to branch, bare hands tearing on the wood. Where was Rhysand?

Farther and farther I fled, her screams chasing me, though they grew ever-distant.

Where are you, where are you, where are you
—

And then, lounging on a branch in a tree before me, one arm draped over the edge, Rhysand drawled, “What the hell did you
do
?”

I skidded to a stop, breathing raw. I thought my lungs might actually be bleeding.

“
You
,” I hissed.

But he raised a finger to his lips and winnowed to me—grabbing my waist with one hand and cupping the back of my neck with his other as he spirited us away—

To Velaris. To just above the House of Wind.

We free-fell, and I didn’t have breath to scream as his wings appeared, spreading wide, and he curved us into a steady glide … right through the open windows of what had to be a war room. Cassian was there—in the middle of arguing with Amren about something.

Both froze as we landed on the red floor.

There was a mirror on the wall behind them, and I glimpsed myself long enough to know why they were gaping.

My face was scratched and bloody, and I was covered in dirt and grease—
boiled fat
—and mortar dust, the hair stuck to me, and I smelled—

“You smell like barbecue,” Amren said, cringing a bit.

Cassian loosened the hand he’d wrapped around the fighting knife at his thigh.

I was still panting, still trying to gobble down breath. The hair clinging to me scratched and tickled, and—

“You kill her?” Cassian said.

“No,” Rhys answered for me, loosely folding his wings. “But given how much the Weaver was screaming, I’m dying to know what Feyre darling did.”

Grease—I had the grease and hair of
people
on me—

I vomited all over the floor.

Cassian swore, but Amren waved a hand and it was instantly gone—along with the mess on me. But I could feel the ghost of it there, the remnants of people, the mortar of those bricks …

“She … detected me somehow,” I managed to say, slumping against the large black table and wiping my mouth against the shoulder of my leathers. “And locked the doors and windows. So I had to climb out through the chimney. I got stuck,” I added as Cassian’s brows rose, “and when she tried to climb up, I threw a brick at her face.”

Silence.

Amren looked to Rhysand. “And where were you?”

“Waiting, far enough away that she couldn’t detect me.”

I snarled at him, “I could have used some help.”

“You survived,” he said. “And found a way to help yourself.” From the hard glimmer in his eye, I knew he was aware of the panic that had almost gotten me killed, either through mental shields I’d forgotten to raise or whatever anomaly in our bond. He’d been aware of it—and let me endure it.

Because it
had
almost gotten me killed, and I’d be no use to him if it happened when it mattered—with the Book. Exactly like he’d said.

“That’s what this was also about,” I spat. “Not just this
stupid ring
,” I reached into my pocket, slamming the ring down on the table, “or my
abilities
, but if I can master my panic.”

Cassian swore again, his eyes on that ring.

Amren shook her head, sheet of dark hair swaying. “Brutal, but effective.”

Rhys only said, “Now you know. That you can use your abilities to hunt our objects, and thus track the Book at the Summer Court,
and
master yourself.”

“You’re a prick, Rhysand,” Cassian said quietly.

Rhys merely tucked his wings in with a graceful snap. “You’d do the same.”

Cassian shrugged, as if to say fine, he would.

I looked at my hands, my nails bloody and cracked. And I said to Cassian, “I want you to teach me—how to fight. To get strong. If the offer to train still stands.”

Cassian’s brows rose, and he didn’t bother looking to Rhys for approval. “You’ll be calling
me
a prick pretty damn fast if we train. And I don’t know anything about training humans—how breakable your bodies are. Were, I mean,” he added with a wince. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t want my only option to be running,” I said.

“Running,” Amren cut in, “kept you alive today.”

I ignored her. “I want to know how to fight my way out. I don’t want to have to wait on anyone to rescue me.” I faced Rhys, crossing my arms. “Well? Have I proved myself?”

But he merely picked up the ring and gave me a nod of thanks. “It was my mother’s ring.” As if that were all the explanation and answers owed.

“How’d you lose it?” I demanded.

“I didn’t. My mother gave it to me as a keepsake, then took it back when I reached maturity—and gave it to the Weaver for safekeeping.”

“Why?”

“So I wouldn’t waste it.”

Nonsense and idiocy and—I wanted a bath. I wanted
quiet
and a bath. The need for those things hit me strong enough that my knees buckled.

I’d barely looked at Rhys before he grabbed my hand, flared his wings, and had us soaring back through the windows. We free-fell for
five thunderous, wild heartbeats before he winnowed to my bedroom in the town house. A hot bath was already running. I staggered to it, exhaustion hitting me like a physical blow, when Rhys said, “And what about training your other … gifts?”

Through the rising steam from the tub, I said, “I think you and I would shred each other to bits.”

“Oh, we most definitely will.” He leaned against the bathing room threshold. “But it wouldn’t be fun otherwise. Consider
our
training now officially part of your work requirements with me.” A jerk of the chin. “Go ahead—try to get past my shields.”

I knew which ones he was talking about. “I’m tired. The bath will go cold.”

“I promise it’ll be just as hot in a few moments. Or, if you mastered your gifts, you might be able to take care of that yourself.”

I frowned. But took a step toward him, then another—making him yield a step, two, into the bedroom. The phantom grease and hair clung to me, reminded me what he’d done—

I held his stare, those violet eyes twinkling.

“You feel it, don’t you,” he said over the burbling and chittering garden birds. “Your power, stalking under your skin, purring in your ear.”

“So what if I do?”

A shrug. “I’m surprised Ianthe didn’t carve you up on an altar to see what that power looks like inside you.”

“What, precisely, is your issue with her?”

“I find the High Priestesses to be a perversion of what they once were—once promised to be. Ianthe among the worst of them.”

A knot twisted in my stomach. “Why do you say that?”

“Get past my shields and I’ll
show
you.”

So that explained the turn in conversation. A taunt. Bait.

Holding his stare … I let myself fall for it. I let myself imagine that line between us—a bit of braided light … And there was his mental
shield at the other end of the bond. Black and solid and impenetrable. No way in. However I’d slipped through before … I had no idea. “I’ve had enough tests for the day.”

Rhys crossed the two feet between us. “The High Priestesses have burrowed into a few of the courts—Dawn, Day, and Winter, mostly. They’ve entrenched themselves so thoroughly that their spies are everywhere, their followers near-fanatic with devotion. And yet, during those fifty years, they escaped. They remained hidden. I would not be surprised if Ianthe sought to establish a foothold in the Spring Court.”

“You mean to tell me they’re all black-hearted villains?”

“No. Some, yes. Some are compassionate and selfless and wise. But there are some who are merely self-righteous … Though those are the ones that always seem the most dangerous to me.”

“And Ianthe?”

A knowing sparkle in his eyes.

He really wouldn’t tell me. He’d dangle it before me like a piece of meat—

I lunged. Blindly, wildly, but I sent my power lashing down that line between us.

And yelped as it slammed against his inner shields, the reverberations echoing in me as surely as if I’d hit something with my body.

Rhys chuckled, and I saw fire. “Admirable—sloppy, but an admirable effort.”

Panting a bit, I seethed.

But he said, “Just for trying … ,” and took my hand in his. The bond went taut, that thing under my skin pulsing, and—

There was dark, and the colossal sense of
him
on the other side of his mental barricade of black adamant. That shield went on forever, the product of half a millennia of being hunted, attacked, hated. I brushed a mental hand against that wall.

Like a mountain cat arching into a touch, it seemed to purr—and then relaxed its guard.

His mind opened for me. An antechamber, at least. A single space he’d carved out, to allow me to see—

A bedroom carved from obsidian; a mammoth bed of ebony sheets, large enough to accommodate wings.

And on it, sprawled in nothing but her skin, lay Ianthe
.

I reeled back, realizing it was a memory, and Ianthe was in
his
bed, in
his
court beneath that mountain, her full breasts peaked against the chill—

“There is more,” Rhys’s voice said from far away as I struggled to pull out. But my mind slammed into the shield—the other side of it. He’d trapped me in here—

“
You kept me waiting
,”
Ianthe sulked.

The sensation of hard, carved wood digging into my back—Rhysand’s back—as he leaned against the bedroom door
. “
Get out
.”

Ianthe gave a little pout, bending her knee and shifting her legs wider, baring herself to him. “I see the way you look at me, High Lord.”

“You see what you want to see,” he—we—said. The door opened beside him. “Get out.”

A coy tilt of her lips. “I heard you like to play games.” Her slender hand drifted low, trailing past her belly button. “I think you’ll find me a diverting playmate.”

Icy wrath crept through me—him—as he debated the merits of splattering her on the walls, and how much of an inconvenience it’d cause. She’d hounded him relentlessly—stalked the other males, too. Azriel had left last night because of it. And Mor was about one more comment away from snapping her neck.

“I thought your allegiance lay with other courts.” His voice was so cold. The voice of the High Lord.

“My allegiance lies with the future of Prythian, with the true power in this land.” Her fingers slid between her legs—and halted. Her gasp cleaved the room as he sent a tendril of power blasting for her, pinning that arm to the bed—away from herself. “Do you know what a union
between us could do for Prythian, for the world?” she said, eyes devouring him still.

“You mean yourself.”

“Our offspring could rule Prythian.”

Cruel amusement danced through him. “So you want my crown—and for me to play stud?”

She tried to writhe her body, but his power held her. “I don’t see anyone else worthy of the position.”

She’d be a problem—now, and later. He knew it. Kill her now, end the threat before it began, face the wrath of the other High Priestesses, or … see what happened. “Get out of my bed. Get out of my room. And get out of my court.”

He released his power’s grip to allow her to do so.

Ianthe’s eyes darkened, and she slithered to her feet, not bothering with her clothes, draped over his favorite chair. Each step toward him had her generous breasts bobbing. She stopped barely a foot away. “You have no idea what I can make you feel, High Lord.”

She reached a hand for him, right between his legs.

His power lashed around her fingers before she could grab him.

He crunched the power down, twisting.

Ianthe screamed. She tried backing away, but his power froze her in place—so much power, so easily controlled, roiling around her, contemplating ending her existence like an asp surveying a mouse.