“Did you travel with him?”
“No, my two sisters and I remained home. It wasn’t appropriate for us to travel the world.”
“I always forget how similar human ideas of propriety are to the Illyrians’.” Emerie took another bite. “Would you have wanted to see the world, if you could?”
“It was half a world, wasn’t it? With the wall in place.”
“Still better than nothing.”
Nesta chuckled. “You’re right.” She considered Emerie’s question. If her father had offered to bring them on one of his ships, to let them see strange and distant shores, would they have gone? Elain had always wanted to visit the continent to study the tulips and other famed flowers, but her imagination had stretched no further. Feyre had talked once about the glorious art in the continent’s museums and private estates. But that was all the western edge of it. Beyond that, the continent was vast. And to the south, another continent sprawled. Would she have gone?
“I would have put up a fight,” Nesta said at last, “but in the end, I’d have yielded to curiosity.”
“Do you still have any family in the human lands?”
“My mother died when I was twelve, and my father … He did not survive the most recent war. Their parents died during my childhood. I have no kin on my father’s side, and my mother had one cousin, who lives on the continent and conveniently forgot about us when we fell on hard times.”
Nesta had written letter after letter when they’d fallen into poverty, begging her cousin Urstin to take them in. They’d gone unanswered, and then the money for postage had run out. Nesta still wondered if their cousin had ever learned what had become of the relatives she’d ignored and left to die.
Nesta asked carefully, “What about your family?” She’d seen and heard enough from Bellius to have a general idea, but she couldn’t help asking.
“Mother died giving birth to me, and my elder brother died in a skirmish between war-bands ten years before I was born. My father died during the war with Hybern.” The words were stiff, cold. “I do not bother with the rest of my kin, though my father’s family makes it a point to try to claim this store and his wealth as their own.”
“They’re not entitled to it, are they?”
“No. Rhysand changed the inheritance laws centuries ago to include females, but my uncles don’t seem to care. They still show up every now and then to bother me like Bellius did. They believe a woman should not run her own business, that I should wed a male in this village and leave the store to them.” She grimaced. “They’re vultures.”
Emerie had finished her lunch and poured some tea for each of them. “It’s a shame that you won’t be coming up here very often. I could use another sensible person to talk to.”
Nesta blinked at the compliment, the bit of truth it revealed about Emerie: she was unhappy in this place. All those questions about traveling … “Would you ever move away?”
Emerie choked on a laugh. “And go where? At least here I know people. I’ve never left this village. Never even been up to that mountaintop over there.” She gestured to the window, and Nesta made it a point not to look at her wings.
Nesta sipped from her tea. It was a strong brew, with a bit of a bite. She must have made a face because Emerie explained quietly, “Tea is in short supply here—a luxury that I indulge. But to spread it out, I add a little willow bark to it. It also helps with some of my … pains.”
“What pains?”
“My wings sometimes hurt. The scars, I mean. Like an old wound.”
Nesta kept her pity tamped down. She finished her tea right as Emerie did, and said, “Thank you for the food.” Rising, she picked up her plate.
“I’ll get it.” Emerie hustled around the table. “Don’t trouble yourself.”
She moved with an easy grace, like someone confident in her body.
Nesta drifted to the front of the shop, but then said, at last voicing her reason for visiting, “The training I’m doing with Cassian in the House of Wind is open to anyone—any female, I mean. Females who have experienced … hardship.” Emerie’s wings, her horrible family, were not the same as what Gwyn had endured, but everyone’s traumas wore different masks. “We train each morning, from nine to eleven, though we sometimes run until noon. You’re welcome to come.”
Emerie stiffened. “I have no way of getting there, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Someone could come retrieve you, and bring you back.” Nesta didn’t know who, but if she had to ask Rhys himself, she would.
“It’s a generous offer, but I have my shop to run.” Emerie’s face yielded nothing, as battle-hardened as Azriel’s. “I’m not interested in a warrior’s training. I doubt it would win me patrons in this town to have them know I’m doing such a thing.”
“You don’t seem like a coward.”
The words rang between them.
Emerie bit her lip. But Nesta shrugged. “Send word if you wish to join us. The offer stands.”
Cassian hated to admit it, but for a spoiled, soulless asshole, Eris had his uses. Mostly one: the bubble of heat that warmed them against the chill winds wending through the pines of the Illyrian Steppes. Some fire magic to warm their bones.
“The Dread Trove,” Eris mused, surveying the heavy gray sky that threatened snow. “I’ve never heard of such items. Though it does not surprise me.”
“Does your father know of them?” The Steppes weren’t neutral ground, but they were empty enough that Eris had finally deigned to accept Cassian’s request to meet here. After taking days to reply to his message.
“No, thank the Mother,” Eris said, crossing his arms. “He would have told me if he did. But if the Trove has a sentience like you suggested, if it wants to be found … I fear that it might also be reaching out to others as well. Not just Briallyn and Koschei.”
Beron in possession of the Trove would be a disaster. He’d join the ranks of the King of Hybern. Could become something terrible and deathless like Lanthys. “So Briallyn failed to inform Beron about her quest for the Trove when he visited her?”
“Apparently, she doesn’t trust him, either,” Eris said, face full of contemplation. “I’ll need to think on that.”
“Don’t tell him about it,” Cassian warned.
Eris shook his head. “You misunderstand me. I’m not going to tell him a damned thing. But the fact that Briallyn is actively hiding her larger plans from him …” He nodded, more to himself. “Is this why Morrigan is back in Vallahan? To learn if they know about the Trove?”
“Maybe,” Cassian lied. She was still trying to convince them to sign the new treaty. But Eris didn’t need to know that.
“Here I was,” Eris said, “thinking Morrigan was going there so often to hide from me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s only coincidence.” He wasn’t sure if the lie held.
“Why shouldn’t I flatter myself with such thoughts? You flatter yourself, thinking you’re more than a mongrel bastard.”